The Ridonculously Exploded Race
by SideshowJazz1
Summary: Sequel to Total Exploded Pahkitew Island. "Sweet Sneak" Julie Sanchez is asked to compete in The Ridonculous Race, but only if she competes with someone from the season that she didn't get along with. Despite the odds, she gets a partner, and the "Frenemy Athletes" embark on a new adventure. But if Julie wants to get the money this time, she'll have to play fair...
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hello, everyone! I know I'm still not finished with Danni's story, but after rewatching Ridonculous Race, a voice in my head suggested "Why not put Julie in? Imagine if she had to pair up with Sky!" So here we are, a sequel to "Total Exploded Pahkitew Island".**

 **Plot: It's been a few months since Total Drama Pahkitew Island has aired, and Julie Sanchez, now with her ankle healed and a final three status under her belt, is asked to compete in the new show that the Total Drama producers are planning. However, they only want her if she partners up with someone from Pahkitew Island – someone she conflicted with. Maybe it's time that she proved to Sky that she's not the villain she thought...**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own The Ridonculous Race or Sky. I do own Julie. Please read "Total Exploded Pahkitew Island" before reading this, as you won't understand why Sky dislikes Julie otherwise.**

 _Congratulations! You have been invited to take part in our new reality TV competition, "The Ridonculous Race". You have no obligation to compete, but if you wish to, you must choose a partner. We have sent messages to your co-stars, with the names listed below. If you wish to compete, please talk to your co-star before accepting the place._

And after that, there were four names listed.

Yes, you got that. Me, Julie Rosa Sanchez, the "Sweet Sneak" (that's what the sites and Sierra's blog called me), was asked by the Total Drama producers to come back to win a million dollars – but this time, it would be a race around the world with a partner.

A partner I'd competed with on the Pahkitew Island season. Someone who had unfinished business with the show. Someone who didn't like me much.

Now if Ella or Beardo had been on the list, that would have been fine. They were my closest friends on the show. I still Skyped Beardo every so often, and I met up with Ella almost every fortnight. But neither of my friends were on the list.

I started ruling out people. Amy was on the list, but I struck that off. Amy was generally harmless, but she was pretty useless, too. Her spite was only ever directed at me because I was on her sister's side, and I didn't know why the producers wanted her back. Maybe they thought she'd have potential alone?

I ruled out Sugar, too. I'd gotten her eliminated last season, but only because I wanted her to stop picking on Ella. Anyway, Sugar probably didn't hate me, but I didn't want to put up with her for a whole season, especially since the show was pitched to run for 26 episodes, which with all the plane trips, would definitely be a lot longer than the two weeks on Pahkitew Island.

Scarlett...I didn't know what she was doing on the list. Was she even out of the correctional facility? Yeah, she'd make the season exciting, and I wouldn't mind teaming up with a brain, but I wasn't going to have the psycho on my team.

None of the guys from my season were listed. I guess because none of them had any problem with me. Beardo was my friend, Dave and Shawn didn't hate me, I'd never spoken to Rodney, Topher probably didn't know I'd had a hand in his elimination, Max didn't know me well enough to like or hate me, and Leonard wasn't around long enough to know me.

That left just one name on the list. And if I wanted to be on the show – which I did – I'd have to convince her first.

That's why I got onto Facebook immediately and checked. Yes, she was online! Then I messaged: _Video chat, now! We need to talk._

I got a message back instantly. _Is this about the new show the Total Drama producers are doing? The answer is no._

I gave a sigh and clicked on Video Chat anyway, before sending another message: _Can't I make it up to you? Just because we're not friends doesn't mean I don't like you. Don't you want to try again?_

The only answer I got was a rejected request and another message. _I already won a million dollars! I don't want to go on TV again! Why can't you ask one of your friends?_

 _I'd rather race with you,_ I answered truthfully enough. _What if I promise not to listen in on confessionals or try to affect the outcome in any way other than working hard?_

There was a long pause. Then, finally, a message came back. _Okay. What I'll agree to is we apply as a team, we work as a team, and we do our best to win. If I don't like the way you're playing, I'll tell you. If you ignore me, I'll throw the challenge. This time, there's no voting. If we come in last, we get cut. Game on!_

I had to keep in my squeals. The last person on my list had been Sky, our season winner. And she'd been pretty mad at me after she found out that I wasn't the most moral person on our team. But I had been pretty unhappy about losing her friendship, and coupled with the fact that I could only get on the Ridonculous Race is if I paired up with her or several people I didn't like, why not team up with her? And hey, I'd promised to keep my trickier plays to a minimum – enough that I could do them openly and no one would be able to tell, pretty much. Besides, with the votes gone, the only way to make someone lose would be to find a way to slow them down. It was all about physical skills.

Then a thought struck me. If I played well and honestly, maybe I could get Sky to like me again. She hated cheaters, so if I showed I could get far without cheating, maybe she'd think about giving me another chance. She didn't totally despise me, but she still didn't like me much. If I made up for all my eavesdropping on confessionals and manipulating the votes (not tampering with them, just making sure those who made themselves targets got targeted), she might finally respect me again.

All right, I'd do it. It shouldn't be too hard to stay out of confessionals this time. Votes weren't in this game – it was all about where we placed. And I was prepared. Sky and I were probably two of the stronger players, with Sky being on her way to become an Olympic gymnast, and me being a track star. Plus, we could both be smart and creative, so that gave us enough of an edge to get far fair.

A week after I applied, I got a message back, telling me where to go to start the race (a certain train station), the name of our new host (Don), and our team label (The "Frenemy Athletes").

Sky sent me a message on Facebook: _Did you see our team label? Ridiculous, isn't it?_

My message back said: _Ridonculous, I guess. Did you get a label as a TD contestant? Mine was the "Sweet Sneak"._

Sky took a while to answer, but she replied _Turns out my label is the "Athlete". I guess that's why they put that In our name. Because you're an athlete, too. And...okay, when I watched the series, you were sort of sweet when you weren't being sneaky._

I sent Sky a smiley face, and went to pack.

 **As usual, a short first chapter. I hadn't made a label for Julie in the previous one, but here it is – the "Sweet Sneak". Do you think it fits?**

 **Oh, and Happy NY, everyone!**


	2. Chapter 2

**All right. We've seen how Julie's getting on. Now she and Sky need to face each other again. Thanks for reviewing, SuperKitty4789, OmniPlanckInstant, PokemonFTW, Nicky Haugh, Bloodylilcorpse and yeezynight14.**

Sky was awkward when we finally saw each other. We had nothing to talk about, so as we sat on the train that went to the right station, we were looking around, everywhere but each other. I was surveying the teams, looking at everyone. Not all the teams were taking the train, but I knew that half the duos in our carriage were Ridonculous Race.

Then I spotted a few familiar faces. Some I didn't know in reality, some I'd briefly met. I waved a hand, yelling to one of the teams.

"Hey, Owen! Is that Noah with you? We have to talk sometime!" When we'd been at the mansion after the show, Chris told us he'd suggested to the other contestants that they drop by if they wanted to meet us. Owen was one of the ones who visited, and he even signed my ankle cast.

Owen looked a bit bewildered that I was calling to him like a longtime friend, but he smiled and waved back anyway, nudging his partner. I recognized Noah immediately, but he didn't know me and didn't seem to be bothered. He was the exact opposite of his chubby buddy.

Sky tapped me on the shoulder. "Don't get too close to the competition." she advised. "You know what happened last time – if you get too friendly, you end up betraying them."

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Oh, so was your Facebook status lying? You _aren't_ still with Dave?"

Sky just sighed. "He left the game before the merge, okay? It was just lucky that I _didn't_ have to hurt him any more than I did when he found out about Keith."

I paused. But I just had to ask. "What about Keith, anyway? How did he take it when you dumped him?"

Sky looked upset. "He took it better than I thought. I expected him to be furious with me, but...even though it was a relief he didn't, what happened was almost worse. He just...started crying. I felt like the worst person in the world."

We didn't get the chance to talk further, because we were called to the confessional booth. Because we were racing around the world, the confessional booth was a little cardboard structure with a world map backdrop. There would be individual and team on-set confessionals too, but between challenges and travelling, we could use the confessional booth, and we had to start with an introductory team confessional.  
"We met on Total Drama," I told the camera, "And...well...we ended on not-so-great terms, so we decided this might be a good opportunity to change things. Well, at least, I did."

"Last time, I was there to win." Sky added. "This time, that's not the reason I'm here, but it doesn't mean I'm not going to try my hardest. We're here to prove that we can work as a team."

"But, we'd rather have the money than not." I added, smiling sweetly. "It just means we're going to play fair."

When the train finally stopped at the station, I spotted several other teams running in from the outside, and our host, Don, was standing in front of the camera crew, talking straight to the audience.

We weren't the first to leave the carriage. The first two were a tall blonde guy and a petite dark-haired girl, both wearing purple and pink, and both leaping out gracefully. They were followed by two guys a little bit older than us. The blonde one looked familiar, but I couldn't place him until Sky and I exited third, and I heard him speaking to the camera.

"Going around the world on someone else's dime! S-weet! Hey, Bridgette, love ya, babe!"

I nudged Sky. "Is that Geoff from the first season? That's pretty cool!" I'd always liked Geoff...well, not so much as the Aftermath host, but he was a really fun guy to watch and he had a lot of charisma. It helped that he and Bridgette, his girlfriend, was just as friendly and fun, with a few more brains. And apparently, they were still together.

"I remember him." Sky nodded. "Look, are you planning to make friends with people on this season? You keep commenting on them."

I shrugged. "No voting, remember? As long as I play fair during challenges, betraying them is impossible. We don't have to make alliances, you know. You don't like alliances anyway, but you made friends on Pahkitew Island, right?"

"I-" Sky began, then she gave a sigh. "Yes, I know. I do keep in touch with everyone. Okay, I won't say anything."

Soon, the thirty-seven of us were all gathered around Don. He was about as wannabe-glam as Chris was, but I immediately sensed that he lacked the casually sadistic trait that was so strong in Chris. "Welcome, contestants!" he greeted us. "This is the starting line for your twenty-six-part race around the world!"

We went through the rules. Each location would have a "Chill Zone" to go to after the challenge of the location was completed. The team that got there last would be at risk of elimination – not all Chill Zones would automatically eliminate the losers since there would be twenty-five not counting the last one and there were only nineteen teams, but no one wanted to come last!

The first team to reach the last Chill Zone and stand on the "Carpet Of Completion" would win the million dollars.

Don also introduced us to a box that looked like a cartoon version of him with a red button on top. He caled it the "Don Box" dispensed "Travel Tips", that would tell us what to do when getting to a challenge, or where to go after completing one, as well as which mode of transportation to take.

"Ready, teams?" Don said. "On your marks...get set...RACE!" And we all ran for the first Don Box. I slammed my hand on the button fourth. "Race on foot to the CN Tower and find the Don Box to get your first tip."

There was no problem with keeping up. In fact, not only did Sky and I start out in fourth place, but we managed to outrun two other teams. Thing was, the team in front (presumably Father-Son, since it was a man with a receding hairline and a kid who looked about twelve or thirteen) accidentally knocked over a garbage can, which fell onto another team (the purple-pink team from the carriage), and the third team (Geoff and his friend) stopped to ask if they were all right.

As we reached the Don Box and Sky pushed the button, I leaned against it to catch my breath. "Either-Or." Sky read. "I think it's a choice between two challenges – it says Stairs or Scares."

"So what do we have to do?"

"Climb 144 flights of stairs to the top of the tower, or take the elevator, then go around the tower on the Skywalk."

I thought about it for a second, looking around as each team decided. "I think less people are doing Stairs." I pointed out. "Maybe we should do it. We don't know what the wind is like today – someone might get blown over on the Skywalk."

"Good point..." Sky conceded. "Okay, let's go!"

We didn't talk as we climbed. It was more interesting to listen to what was going on below us. As we reached the fourth flight, we heard the man with the receding hairline saying "Anyone asks, we chose Stairs." I wondered what had happened there.

We were almost overtaken by the pink and purple team. Luckily, just as they drew level with us, they stopped long enough to wave to the cameras for us to overtake them by two flights. "Hello to all our fans!" the girl called out. "We love you!"

I exchanged a confused look with Sky. Who were those two?

As it was, we actually reached the top of the tower seconds before that team, but they pushed past us to grab the first travel tip.

"Ziplining." I told Sky. "Our next travel tip is somewhere there. One person hangs onto the zipline, other sits on their shoulders and grabs the tip." I knew what would be best, but I'd resolved not to argue. If Sky chose differently, I'd go along with it.

Luckily, she was as logical as ever. "I'm smaller than you, so you take the zipline, and I'll get the tip."

We were the second down, but by the time we'd read the tip (book one of three flights to Morocco, leaving half an hour apart from each other – the first and third flight took six teams, the second took seven), five other teams were already down and there were only tickets for the second and third flights. So we booked two seats on the second flight and flopped down to wait. Our flight was in an hour, so we had just enough time to get the names of everyone on the first flight before they boarded.

We already knew Owen and Noah, so we talked to them first. It turned out that their label was the "Reality TV Pros", because they'd teamed up on other shows since Total Drama. Owen remembered us and said "Oh yeah! You were on that last season of Total Drama! Noah, this is...um...Julie and...Sky! Is that right? I remember Julie, because you were the one with the broken ankle."

I grimaced, remembering, but nodded and offered Noah a friendly smile. Sky smiled a polite greeting too.

We just quickly introduced ourselves to the other teams. Pink-and-purple were the "Ice Dancers". The blonde guy was Jacques and the little dark-haired girl was Josee. They boarded first, followed by two girls in blue, calling themselves the "Police Cadets". They only gave us their last names – Sanders and MacArthur.

The Father-Son team were on the first flight, too. Both of them were called Dwayne, but the son was often referred to as Junior, so we didn't get them mixed up.

Then there was a team calling themselves the "Best Friends" - a guy and a girl around our age. The guy was Devin and the girl was Carrie.

Finally, there was a couple who looked to be completely devoted to each other. The girl was Stephanie, the guy was Ryan. Once they'd boarded and we were introduced, pretty much everyone who had managed to get a second-flight ticket were waiting, and the third-flight teams were either booking or in line to book.

"Who do you think will be a threat?" I whispered to Sky.

"Can we not talk about this yet?" Sky said pointedly, pulling a book out of her rucksack.

"I'm just trying to decide who we're going to spend most of the race with." I hissed. "Besides, did you even notice that we know someone else in this race?"

Sky raised her eyebrows. "What?" In answer, I pointed over to one gender-equal team – a boy with a pointed hood and a fake beard, and a girl with a Viking Helmet.

"Isn't that Leonard?" I pointed out. "Remember – we voted him off first last season!"

Sky gave a nod. "All right. But does this really matter? We're not voting _this_ season – there's no point in sizing up threats until we get to more challenges!"

I shrugged. "Well, okay. I won't size up threats now. But we should at least get to know the people we're playing against."

 **It's not going to be an easy thing, getting Sky to forgive Julie. She feels betrayed, so Julie's going to really have to work hard at proving she can play fair. Sky's obviously a very fair person, deep down, so all Julie has to do is give her proof over a long time, and she might earn Sky's trust back, if she tries hard enough.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Flying to Morocco! So, anyone out there, have you been? What about this – would you like to go? I haven't been, but I know so little about it that I don't even know whether I'd like to go or not! Still, plenty of places I'm more knowledgeable about to come! Thanks for reviewing, The Phenomenal Flair (love the name), PokemonFTW, yeezynight14, Bloodylilcorpse and SuperKitty4789.**

We had to board before we got to know anyone else at the airport, but at least we had a chance to look around at the other six teams with us.

Well, I did. Sky was trying her best to act as if the other teams weren't any of her concern – it wasn't that she didn't like them. I knew what she was doing – trying to make sure she didn't get too friendly with her competition.

Sitting across the aisle from us were two Asian girls, both probably a little older than us. I leaned across the aisle and said "Hi!"

The girl with loose hair sitting by the window only glanced up for a moment, then looked back down at the book she was reading. Her teammate, who had her hair in pigtails, looked up properly, smiled and said "Hi!"

"So who are you guys?" I asked. "I'm Julie, and this is Sky, my teammate. You might've seen us before if you've watched Total Drama?"

The pigtailed girl looked thoughtful for a moment. Then her eyes lit up. "Oh, I know! The last season, right? Oh, by the way, I'm Kitty, and this is my sister, Emma. I remember you two – you were the one who broke her ankle, right? And the winner?"

I nudged Sky pointedly, before I answered "Yes, she won. And I'm surprised you remember my ankle over my strategies. I was the one eavesdropping on everyone's confessionals – but I've promised Sky I won't do that again, so don't worry about that."

Kitty shrugged. "I sort of accepted it. It seemed tacked on, to be honest, because you didn't do much with it."

"I tried to construct my votes around it." I admitted. "But that's all – I didn't use the confessionals I heard to sway anyone or manipulate anyone. There's no votes this time around – but I'm still not going to listen."

Sky mumbled something I couldn't hear – probably not anything nice judging by her tone, but I ignored her anyway.

I was sure to make sure I learned everyone else's names and team labels. Emma and Kitty were just the "Sisters". Easy enough. Also on our flight were "Vegans" Laurie and Miles, "Geniuses" Ellody and Mary, "Fashion Bloggers" Tom and Jen (Tom was actually asleep when I introduced myself, but Jen looked up from her magazine long enough to introduce both of them), "Rockers" Rock and Spud and finally "Mom and Daughter" Kelly and Taylor (I swear, Taylor and Amy had the exact same voice...or at least the same superior tone).

Finally, I collapsed back into the seat next to Sky. "If we're not voting and we're not doing a challenge, what's wrong with being friendly?" I asked. "As long as we keep to ourselves during the competition part of the race, we could both do it. It would be nice to get to know people we're going to spend the next couple of months with."

Sky shrugged. "You can do it if you want to. Maybe I'll think about it later."

That was the last time she talked to me on the flight. Mostly, she was plugged into her headphones watching movies, or doing airplane recommended exercises. Well, okay, I decided to get a little sleep on the flight, so I didn't know if there was anything else, but whatever the reason, Sky didn't say another word to me until we landed (during the early afternoon). Even then, it was only after she got the travel tip. We were first to the Don Box.

"It's an All-In – It says that means we work together, and there's no choice this time. I guess there'll be individual challenges later on. We need to get a taxi to a spice kiosk." Sky told me as we ran to the taxi bay. We grabbed one, and she added "We need to pick five spices, it says – preferably cumin, cinammon, paprika, saffron and ginger."

I grinned. "I know my spices. We all love spiced food in my family, so I can tell the difference between most of them. Leave this one to me."

I was right. Just as we were given our chosen spices (all by me – Sky didn't argue), the Geniuses and Vegans arrived.

"Cumin, cinnamon, paprika, saffron, ginger." Ellody and Laurie recited in unison, pointing at all the spices I'd chosen.

"That was surprisingly elementary." Ellody commented.

"I know, right?" Laurie agreed.

I grinned at them. "I guess we could call ourselves...Spice Girls?" I giggled. Ellody missed a beat before she nodded and chuckled. Laurie just smiled back at me.

"Focus!" Sky whispered to me. "We've got another travel tip – we need to take a camel through a desert to a restaurant. We've got a little map, but it looks like it's pretty much all west." We looked over to the right to see a bunch of camels – thirteen. Enough to know that we were the first of the second-flight teams.

Well, we weren't about to lose our lead, so we jumped on our camel and started off.

We actually passed another team whose camel appeared to have collapsed – the Father and Son. Junior (yeah, just gonna call him that – we all did) was sitting on top of it, looking bored, while Dwayne was tugging at it.

I was sitting on the highest point of the hump, while Sky was a little further down. "Is our camel doing all right?" I asked, giving another glance behind me at the other one.

Sky gave our camel a glance and said "I'm no expert, but I think he...she?...is going fine. I don't know what happened to that one."

We were passed by a couple of other teams (not the Vegans, but the Geniuses), but we made it to the restaurant and Don Box eighth. I slid off the camel as Sky pulled out the next travel tip. "Botch or Watch." she read. "Only one of us has to do it. We need to give the spices to the chef. He'll put it in his stew, and then one of us will have to eat it. Then we can go to the first Chill Zone."

I paused. "Remember that first merge challenge? I ducked out because I thought I was going to be sick. Maybe you should do it."

Sky frowned. "I thought you were used to spicy food. And you were sure about the right spices? Plus two of the others chose the same ones."

"I know, but..." I sighed, knowing I was going to lose. "Look, I wasn't trying to poison you by saying you should do it. I just thought you'd be faster because you won the pre-challenge eating race and got to be seeker. But I get it, it's my turn. Okay, just pass me the bag of spices and I'll get the stew."

The stew, to be fair, wasn't that bad. It had lots of good flavours, which is more than I can say for the stews other people seemed to be having. Owen looked like he was about to catch on fire, and although I wasn't really listening, I could see MacArthur getting mad, since Sanders kept sipping and dabbing her mouth with a napkin.

I kept going, conscious as more teams arrived – both from our flight and the flight after. Even Leonard and his friend had arrived. Sky was watching too, her face anxious.

"Finished!" I finally announced, just as Father and Son arrived.  
"Let's go!" Sky exclaimed, and started running, me following behind.

"There better be water there..." I mumbled.

There was, and we arrived in a respectable seventh place. Teams that arrived before us were the Best Friends, Police Cadets, Ice Dancers, two teams we hadn't spoken to yet (though one of them had Geoff) and the Daters.

The fourth team turned out to be the "Tennis Rivals" - two rather elderly men called Gerry and Pete. They seemed nice, if a little crusty. They'd been on the last flight, but they had still made it to the Chill Zone early.

Geoff's friend was called Brody, and their team name was the "Surfer Dudes." They were both very friendly. Well, then again, what could I expect from a team when half of it was what had once been referred to as "the nicest guy in the world" (Gwen said that in the first season of Total Drama when Geoff got eliminated).

The other four teams we hadn't met showed up, one by one. Twelfth were a pair of curly-haired twins called Jay and Mickey. Luckily, they were easy to tell apart, since Mickey wore a helmet and their jumpers were slightly different colours. Their team name was the "Adversity Twins", and they seemed quite sweet. In fact, they were extremely supportive of each other.

"A breath of fresh air after the twins on our season, huh?" I murmured to Sky. I actually got a little smile and nod out of her for that, but only for a second.

Kelly and Taylor arrived before the next new team. I could just tell by the pained look on Kelly's face that she'd had to have the stew.

Fifteenth were two gothic teenagers. I didn't get much out of them. All I got was their names – the girl was Crimson, the guy was Ennui – and their team name, "Goths". They didn't say anything else, and I got the feeling they were waiting for me to leave them alone, so I did.

Sixteenth were the "Stepbrothers", two guys named Chet and Lorenzo. They seemed like they could be fun guys, but since all they did was argue and shove each other, I couldn't really tell.

I never got to find out the name of Leonard's friend, actually, or their team name. The last two teams left in the race came running up before them.

"The Ridonculous Race is about skill." Don told them sternly. "It's about determination. It's _not_ about magic. You're done."

"Time-reversal spell!" Leonard's friend held up her hands and threw confetti.

"Security!"

As the team was led away, I heard them making one last team confessional. It turned out when each team left (or won), they got to make a retrospective confessional, which would be played over footage of them. As I heard them talking, I wondered what Sky and I would end up saying.

That night, we got what the conditions would be like. There were tiny two-person tents for each team to sleep in each night. That was pretty good. If there was any time left in the day or before we were due to start another leg of the race, we could do what we liked. We had to be back in time or be disqualified, but we were basically free.

As for food – well, we didn't have to forage, thank goodness, and we didn't deal with slop like Chef served. The only letdown was that we'd have to find a restaurant to have hot meals. We got free water, but as far as food went, we'd have to live on fruit, uncooked vegetables, and sandwiches and rolls. Not too bad, but it was a good thing I'd thought to bring cash that weren't just to cover the flights. Morocco's Chill Zone was in practically a wasteland, but who knew what would be next? We could probably find a restaurant next time we went to a city.

That night, I had one meaningful conversation with my teammate. "Sky?" I whispered as we finally ducked into our tent that night. "Do you hate me? I feel like I'm spending this whole race waiting for you to find something I've done wrong."

There was a long pause. "I don't hate you." Sky answered finally. "I just...I find it hard to trust you right now. It's not that you've done anything wrong, but the deal was that we play fair or we quit, and so far, you're playing fair. I just worry that if you keep trying to make friends with everyone, you'll end up having to ditch them for the sake of the race."

I shrugged. "I can't help wanting to be friendly with everyone. Look at the teams. Can you honestly tell me there's no one you want to get to know? And if I remember correctly, you got a boyfriend out of our last show. You helped vote him off, but he forgave you."

Sky looked uneasy. "Well...okay. I guess you're sort of right. But I guess we'll have to see what happens."

 **Well, two episodes in and Sky's a little softer with Julie. But it's not enough to establish a really strong team bond. Next episode? Well, you'll have to see!**

 **Also, as a shoutout...Pokemon FTW just started uploading a crossover called Danganronpa Wawanakwa University. I'd just like to recommend it to everyone and suggest you read it, as it is enjoyable, but it's in a crossover archive, it's hidden away at the moment.**


	4. Chapter 4

**We might as well head to Paris now! That's somewhere I have been, and I really enjoyed it, too. They can do great breakfasts with hot chocolate and crossiants. No other country can do bread the way France can, plus Notre Dame was amazing to visit. Thanks for reviewing, The Phenomenal Flair, yeezynight14, Pokemon FTW, SuperKitty4789, Bloodylilcorpse and Nicky Haugh.**

Our next Don Box order was given early the next morning. Since the Best Friends had won the last leg, they got to get their tip first. Devin took one look at it and exclaimed "Oh, wow! Looks like we're going to Paris!"

I nudged Sky excitedly. "That's gotta be exciting, right? Fine art, fine dining, and fine fashion...okay, not that part, but the food is good."

Sky shrugged. "I'm just going to concentrate on not coming last. Tourism can come later if there's time."

We had to take a moped to the nearest airport, and I offered to drive, so we went pretty fast. A little recklessly, maybe, but still, it got us beating the Daters to the airport, and we made it onto the first flight out (there were two flights reserved for us).

Just as we got in line behind the Best Friends, the door opened and in flew the Surfer Dudes, still on their moped. They both fell off after getting in, but they were both laughing. At that moment, the cameras turned on them, and...well...yeah, it was an on-site confessional. I couldn't have not listened to it if I tried. Okay, I didn't hear all of it, but I heard Brody speak, both of them laugh, and Geoff add something about a wedding. Then both of them chorused "FREE CAKE!" and kept on laughing.

"Now, could I help listening in on that?" I muttered to Sky.

She shrugged. "Tell me how much you overheard and I'll know if you meant to or not." Her dark eyes were suspicious.

I paused, thinking. "I think Geoff said something about a wedding, and then they said 'free cake'. That's all I got."

The suspicious look faded. "I heard more than that." Sky said, looking happier. "It wasn't anything too big, anyway. Brody was just sharing an experience he had with another moped."

The Morocco tip instructed us to take a taxi from the Paris airport to the Eiffel Tower, so when we landed and got everything, we ran out. Unfortunately, the rest of the teams on our flight beat us to taxis, but at least we got there in good time to beat the other nine teams. It was nighttime, but the streetlights were so bright, it was hard to tell.

I got the tip first. "Botch or Watch. Your turn, Sky." I squinted at the tip. "You have to draw a caricature of me, and give it to Van Gogh over there-" I pointed to the lookalike watching the teams (yeah, he had a bandage where he'd presumably lost an ear), "And once he accepts it, we can get the next tip."

Sky gave a nod, got the paper, and started drawing while I posed. That gave me a lot of time to survey the other teams. I could see MacArthur drawing, while Sanders posed as if aiming a gun. Brody, meanwhile, flexed as Geoff drew.

The Surfer Dudes finished first, and the Best Friends tried to get the next tip, but failed.

"What do you mean, no?" Devin demanded. "She got an A in art last semester." He looked at Carrie's picture. "Oh, I see. It's too realistic!"

Later on, Noah's drawing of Owen just made Van Gogh II laugh like crazy. Noah pulled his partner away as Owen called out "Wait! I wanna see the picture!" He got ignored.

Sky finished soon after him, and I looked over her shoulder. Okay, she'd exaggerated my braid, and shaded my eyes darker, and I was definitely a bit slimmer, but none of that bothered me. What did was the cartoonish evil smirk she'd drawn me with.

Sky saw my expression. "A caricature is supposed to be exaggerated, and it's how I see you right now." she said bluntly. "I'm not going to draw you differently to that."

I was a little more forgiving when I caught sight of Noah's drawing. He'd drawn Owen about to eat the Eiffel Tower. No wonder the artist had laughed!

We got accepted and Sky took the tip. She wrinkled her nose. "Looks like we have to go into the catacombs. We're looking for wheels of cheese."

I liked the catacombs, to be completely honest. I wished we were tourists, though, because they were confusing. I would've rather walked around them slowly, taking in the skulls and things. As it was, I took a good look at them before Sky pulled at me. "Mind on the game, remember?" she hissed. "If you want to play tourist, you can come back here after we win!"

I gave a sigh. "Yeah, because I took a few minutes to look at the culture. Look, we're doing so little of the culture thing around here. I'm sure they did more on Total Drama World Tour based on the culture."

"Whatever." Sky muttered. "Let's just get to the Chill Zone before everyone else does. Once everyone's done, you can go back if you want."

It's a good thing we were fast, otherwise we would've taken forever to check out all the dead ends before we found our way out and to the wheels. I was almost ready to give up by the time we found them.

Good thing I'm not a quitter, huh?

There lay a bunch of oars next to the cheese, and a sign gave us our next instruction. We needed to take the oars, use the cheese as a raft, and travel down the river to...

"Where Mona Lisa's on display." Sky read, frowning. "Where's that?"

I paused, thinking. Then I brightened up. "I think I saw it in that episode of Total Drama when they came here. And I remember the gallery, because it was in the title – the Louvre!"

It didn't take us too long to get to the Louvre, but we'd already wasted a lot of time getting lost in the catacombs. By the time we got there, all but two teams had made it to the Chill Zone (We later found out that the Police Cadets had won).

"Fifteenth!" Don announced as we stepped onto the carpet.

Sky paused. "Fifteenth?" She glanced around, counting. "But fifteen teams are already here, Don."

Don pointed at the Reality TV Pros. Owen was visibly sweating, while Noah was pacing. "They were given a penalty. Owen ate the cheese before they finished sailing down the river, so they have to wait until their penalty time is up to place."

I quickly went to the confessional booth (yeah, it was cardboard, so we just took it wherever, and since I'd finished the challenge, it didn't need to be on set). "This is scary. I'm not a cheater – I didn't actually _cheat_ last time – but Owen's 'cheating' was clearly just about temptation. If Don gives out penalties when you don't follow the instructions exactly, this game could be a lot harder than I thought."

When I finished, I was surprised to see Sky had been listening attentively. She gave a nod. "This game _is_ going to be harder." she said, her face solemn and deadpan. "But don't forget, it goes both ways. If someone else cheats, they'll get penalized as well."

I sighed. "But Owen didn't _mean_ to cheat."

"I know he didn't, but some of the others might try..." Sky said, her eyes sweeping over them suspiciously. "I'm not so sure about Taylor. Kelly seems all right, though. And those two boys who keep fighting with each other seem like they might be tempted...and well, I have a feeling some of the people might try to cut corners." She smiled. "I'm glad, really. I don't think a dishonest win counts as a win."

The last two teams ran up just before the penalty ended. "Oh no!" Owen exclaimed as the last team arrived. "Here come the Tennis Rivals!"

Yes, the Tennis Rivals had been the last team to arrive. All in one moment, the penalty had ended, and all four men were on the mat.

There was a pause. Then Gerry spoke. "It's a tie! We all stay!"

"Not quite." Don told him quietly but firmly. "I'm afraid you're going home." According to him, Gerry's foot wasn't on the carpet, so they had to go home. Gerry argued with him for a while, but he and Pete still had to leave the game. I even heard them beginning their leaving confessional with Pete's "Well, that was a disaster."

I even heard Gerry's first line of it. "At least we didn't go home first." But that was all, as they sailed their cheese back up the river and their voices faded.

As for Paris? It was all right. We didn't have to go anywhere until early morning the next day, so we spent the day playing tourist.

Sky didn't want to go window-shopping, so I went with Kitty, who was on her own since Emma wasn't interested, either. We spent the whole time chatting and trying on endless designer clothes and wondering if it was worth wasting our money on something we'd probably never wear.

"Did you see the Fashion Bloggers after the challenge?" Kitty asked me.

I shrugged. "No, why?"

"They brought all these clothes with them." Kitty explained. "I asked, and they said they had a flat tire in their taxi, so they went on a quick shopping trip. Jen had to push the cheese wheel and kick, because Tom couldn't row while hanging onto all the bags."

I gave a squeal of laughter. "Wow! I can't believe they got here before half of us after shopping. They were on the second flight, weren't they?"

Kitty nodded, her eyes bright. "Speaking of which, did you see the caricatures everyone did? Some were so funny!"

I giggled. "Noah drew Owen eating the Eiffel Tower. I saw that one. Not sure about the others."

Kitty giggled too. "Lorenzo drew Chet as a garbage bag. Emma was lecturing me the whole time when I drew her, so I got a bit carried away and gave her horns." Her smile dimmed a little. "We're not getting on great at the moment. I'm hoping things will get better, but I guess I'll just have to keep trying."

"Don't worry." I reassured her. "I'm not getting on that well with Sky, either. She doesn't trust me right now. My aim is to win her trust back by the end of the race." Then I managed to grin. "There is one thing that's good about our partners, though. At least we know where we stand with them. I mean, you get to have your _sister_ as a partner-"

"That's true." Kitty admitted, starting to smile again. "We were really close as kids. We've sort of drifted apart a bit since Emma finished high school, but that's what this race is for. We'll be fine. So what about you and your partner?"

I shrugged carelessly. "I'm all good. It's true I don't know Sky as well as some of the other team members know their partners, but I know she's straight and honest, so I trust her."

And I continued to trust her in the next challenge, although it could have killed me.

 **Anyone who's watched the show, you know what that means. BTW, I know so far the eliminations so far have been the same. That's because the early eliminations were largely fodder and got very little focus, even before being eliminated. You may have to endure a few more of the same, but the further we get into the story, the more eliminations will change.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey, did you realize that this episode was the first time the Ice Dancers showed any kind of hint that they might be evil? Oh well, on to Calanque de Maubois (had to look up the spelling for that).**

 **Thanks for reviewing, Nicky Haugh, SuperKitty4789, The Phenomenal Flair, PokemonFTW, yeezynight14 and Bloodylilcorpse.**

When we set off that night, I watched the teams before us get their tips. That's how I noticed Don telling off the Ice Dancers, who bounded up first, smiling away. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Yesterday's winners go first, Icecapades."

"Yeah." added MacArthur aggressively, stepping up behind them. "Relax, Silver Streak."

"Wait your turn!" Sanders added.

I nudged Sky, who didn't look over, but muttered "Yes, I noticed they tried to cut in. It doesn't matter – as long as _we_ don't cheat and no one suffers from others trying to cheat, we stay out of it, agreed?"

More happened. When the Best Friends tried to take their tip, a mime stole it off Devin, and while he chased the creep around to get it back, Carrie gained an admirer. A very _young_ admirer.

Junior was staring at her as if she was an angel. He cleared his throat and said in a deeper-than-usual voice "Hey. I'm Dwayne."

"Hi, I'm Carrie." the blonde smiled, apparently not noticing that Junior was clearly trying to impress her. Before anything more could happen, guess who cut in to shake Carrie's offered hand?

"Pleased to meet you! Dwayne Senior. I see you've already met Junior. This kid...what a great little guy!"

"Dad!" hissed Junior.

I was literally starting to blush out of sympathy for the poor kid. My parents had embarrassed me plenty of times. Once, when Ella was visiting me and I'd left the room to get us drinks, I overheard my mom actually straight out saying to Ella that she hoped some of her rubbed off on me. Ugh, I knew my parents thought Ella was a good influence on me, but still!

I got to see what Kitty meant about Emma when it was their turn to get their tip. "All right, teammate of mine, let's have some fun!" Kitty declared.

"No." Emma snapped. "Let's not have fun, let's try to come in first for a change."

When it was finally our turn, I snatched up the tip first. "We need to get the train to Calanque de Maubois. It's in the south. Our travel tip is at the station there."

In a stroke of luck, we managed to reach the train station faster than most teams. I guess our taxi driver took a different route or something? But whatever happened, we got the second train out. So did the Stepbrothers, Daters, Goths, Geniuses, and spray-tanned Fashion Bloggers.

I decided to approach the Fashion Bloggers on the train, and see if I liked them, so I sat and chatted with them for a while, mostly asking about the clothes they got in Paris. They seemed nice, except for one thing. I noticed Jen staring at my outfit (the same skinny jeans and track team shirt I'd worn on Pahkitew Island) and she exchanged a glance with Tom that made it clear what they were thinking.

I ignored it, though, and happily kept talking about clothes. "Problem with buying clothes at home is that my family is Catholic, so they even get twitchy about me wearing miniskirts, even if they're only just above the knee. And as for anything low-cut, low strung or showing my navel – they won't let me wear it! Once, my mom burned one of my tops just because the label had a little devil head on it!"

This time, their exchanged looks signalled relief. I'd been accepted as not a complete fashion failure. "So anyway," I continued, "I should check out your blog. Do you do vlogs, too?"

"Mostly vlogs, now." Jen answered, smiling.

"It feels like we're communicating more personally with our followers." Tom elaborated. "Like we're really talking with them. Plus people take more notice when they share them on Twitter – people would rather watch a video than read."

I nodded. "Yeah, I understand that. Anyway, I'll definitely look it up after the race is over."

However, the Fashion Bloggers seemed to have disappeared into thin air halfway through the journey. I wondered if they'd gotten off the train at one of the stops and missed getting back on.

I wondered if I was just imagining it, but I definitely hadn't, because I heard Mary saying "Weren't there six teams on board?"

Ellody answered her with "There's the Don Box!"

I was the third to grab a tip. "Botch or Watch, and it's my turn, I think...oh, this can _not_ seriously be the challenge."

Sky looked over my shoulder, and then out at the beach. "Well...do you know what to do if it gets too dangerous?"

I shook my head. "I haven't swum with sharks, before, tip or no tip. I remember something about its nose being sensitive, but..."

"Well, just punch one if it tries to eat you." Sky advised. "I can't think of anything else to do. You shouldn't have too much trouble, right?"

Yes, I had to try and grab a tip from the tail of a shark. And to be fair, I didn't have as much trouble as Brody. I was on the beach with a tip (and bruised knuckles) just before the last train arrived. The Geniuses and Best Friends were just starting, too.

Well, okay, I admit it. Mary somehow did something to scare the sharks off, so I just stuck close to her and grabbed a tip before the sharks swam away. The reason I still had to punch one was because I took a different route to shore.

(Oh, and the Fashion Bloggers had arrived. Some Prince had invited them on his yacht at one of the stops, so they arrived a few minutes after all the Botchers from our train were in the water.

"All-In." I told Sky, showing her the little picture attached. "We need to build a sandcastle that looks like the Palace of Versailles, then we need to get it approved and then we'll get a tip."

Sky looked anxious, so I quickly said "Look, you're the artistic one. You aced that caricature of me. We can sculpt a palace, easy."

Needless to say, it was nowhere near easy. We had to make three attempts before the little guy on the beach approved us. Still, by that time, the Geniuses were still drawing up data for their castle, and Brody had only just reached the shore with his tip.

"Girls, you might want to start building!" I called to the Geniuses as Sky read the tip.

"Speedboats." was all she said, and we ran to the dock, where several speedboats were waiting. We had to drive one to Iceland.

Yeah, I know. _Iceland._ But we were Canadian girls and used to freezing weather, so we didn't even shiver at the prospect (I know we can't judge a country by its name, but we knew Iceland would live up to it).

Four teams had arrived before us, so imagine my surprise when I heard Don say to the Reality TV Pros "Owen and Noah, you're in second place!"

Then it was our turn. "Frenemy Athletes, you're in third!"

I found out that Father and Son had arrived first, but they got penalized because Dwayne had told Junior what the tip said before he reached the beach. The Fashion Bloggers were third to arrive, but got a penalty because they didn't take the train the whole way.

First place? The Ice Dancers, and they looked pretty happy about it. Oh, I'd never actually seen them not smiling so far, but this time, they looked much happier than usual. You know, their smiles reached their eyes a lot more?

The Best Friends and Surfer Dudes had some trouble with their boats, but they both made it to the Chill Zone. However, Don had to fly back in a helicopter to let the Geniuses know that they were out. Yeah, they'd spent so much time on their data that they'd run out of time to finish the sandcastle.

I decided to search for a restaurant that night. I hadn't really bothered in Paris, because it wasn't too cold there. However, hot food in a place like Iceland was definitely called for. Sky didn't want to come with me, but half the cast had had the same idea, so we all went off in search together, and ended up crowding into a seafood place called Slippurrin, and to save cash, we ordered the fifth group menu deal. The food was all right, but it was really great just sitting around a large table and getting to know everyone. I was sitting between Junior and Jen, both good conversationalists, so I didn't run out of anything to say to either of them.

Junior surprised me. He was only about thirteen, but his conversation skills and maturity were way higher. I'd seen Dwayne treating him like...well...a kid, but he was almost definitely mature enough to be treated more like an adult.

Kelly and Taylor were with us, too, but Taylor was more bratty than Junior, even though she was definitely a few years older. I could hear her from the other side of the table, whining because the lobster soup and cured lamb were not to her taste.

"This is all your fault!" she snapped at Kelly. "I wanted to go to a different place, but you were all 'let's stay with the group' and we ended up in this one! And now I don't get to eat anything I like!"

And Kelly didn't even tell her off. I felt a wave of impatience, the way I'd felt when I'd heard the twins arguing and Sammy not bothering to stand up for herself.

I wondered what the next day would bring.

 **Sorry this chapter's a bit shorter than the last few. Anyway, just so you know, Slippurrin is a real restaurant in southern Iceland (I don't know how southern, so it's probably not within walking distance of the Chill Zone), and the menu (I found an English version) does have lobster soup, cured lamb and licorice and ice cream as a set meal if a whole group agrees to it. To be fair, I don't even like soup or seafood, so I'd probably just sit there, waiting for the lamb to arrive. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Okay. Iceland. Another place I'd never been, but I'm not really a fan of extreme weather, especially cold, so I'd rather not go. I don't want to freeze! Thanks for reviewing, SuperKitty4789, Pokemon FTW, Nicky Haugh, Bloodylilcorpse (yeah, her wanting to stay focused all the time) and The Phenomenal Flair.**

Sky was already in our tent and sleeping bag by the time the group got back, so I decided to have an early night too. I have to say, our sleeping bags kept us VERY well insulated. Still, it was times like this I wished I had Owen's body fat to keep me warm...okay, no, I'd never go that far. I liked being slim.

Being high placers last time had its perks. Once the Ice Dancers and the Reality TV Pros had taken their travel tips, Sky pushed the button and I took the tip.

"Take the bus to some geyser field." I read. "I'm not going to bother trying to pronounce it in Icelandic."

The other two teams were waiting at the bus stop already, and most of the other teams were already lining up behind us.

Look, I'm usually a friendly person, but not when people are needlessly aggressive. And that's exactly what Jacques was. He took one look at everyone lined up and snapped "Don't even _think_ about getting on the bus before us!"

"You can't stop me from thinking it." MacArthur challenged. "Get out of my head!"

"Christ's sakes, what is wrong with everyone today?" I interrupted them. "What does it matter who gets on the bus first? Whoever gets on last will probably be first off, anyway!"

Both arguing team members were about to say something to me, but I was saved by Noah. "Uh, guys? The bus?"

Then it was a rush to get straight onto the bus first.

"Why did you have to get involved?" Sky whispered to me. "It wasn't your fight."

I shrugged. "I don't like people who get like Jacques was getting there. Did it really matter who got on here first? And I was sort of trying to stop MacArthur from escalating it. You can tell she's good at arguing, and finds it pretty hard not to get baited."

Sky opened her mouth to argue, then gave a sigh. "Okay, you make a good point. Fighting _is_ the last thing this race needs."

Boy, was my pronounciation comment ironic! Our challenge, once we got there, was an All-In. We had to listen to a recording of Don saying "Please give me my next travel tip" in Icelandic. Then we had to get across the geyser field and repeat it to a local woman.

We listened to it a couple of times, and then kept repeating part of it to each other. But the third time... "Vin salma yast gava..." I began.

"Mer mina travel aAWWW!" Sky gave a little squeal as she got drenched by a geyser. That sent us off-track, so by the time we got to the local, we'd forgotten half our parts of the sentence. We still took a stab at it, but the local shook her head. We'd have to go back to listen to it again.

We had less trouble running through the geysers this time. We'd agreed to just repeat our part of the sentence in our heads, so we weren't distracted calling our halves to each other. We'd lost quite a lot of time, but at least we got the travel tip from the woman after reciting it together.

We had to take a helicopter to a National Park for our next challenge. Yeah, another Icelandic name I'm not going to bother to learn how to spell. Anyway, we missed the first helicopter by 1. Six teams had to board it, and we finished seventh, so we had to wait for five more teams to arrive before we could take off. Oh well, there were sixteen of us. We'd have some advantage over the last four.

When we got to the park, Sky slammed her hand onto the Don Box before anyone else had a chance. "Either-Or." she told me. "Feast or Fossil."

I paused, looking at the other teams. "Which one do you think we should do?" I asked.

Sky shrugged. "Well, between eating an Icelandic feast which will probably be disgusting and chipping out a fossil, I'd rather go fossiling."

I smiled. "Sounds good."

Actually, it was good. We didn't take too long, and just as I got our fossil out, another fossil came sliding down the icy tunnel. Sky quickly stuck a foot out to stop it, while I finished freeing ours.

"Whose is that?" I asked.

Sky shrugged. "Whoevers it is, they'll probably be glad to get it back."

The Vegans came running down the tunnel at the moment, looking anxious.

I smiled. "Is this fossil yours? We found it sliding down the tunnel."

Laurie looked relieved. "Thanks. Yeah, it's ours."

Miles smiled back at me. "Thank you for keeping it here."

I shrugged. "Thank Sky. She stopped it from sliding any further."

We let the Vegans place in front of us, and ended up in ninth place. Okay, so nine teams had arrived, but Taylor had apparently got her team a penalty, because she was snapping at Kelly. "This is all your fault! You're the mom, or whatever. You can't just let me do whatever I want because I'm beautiful! Act like a parent, take charge!"

As you can guess, when Kelly attempted to say something bossy, Taylor didn't even listen, so I don't know why she bothered.

Father and Son came in last, but they were very lucky. "This is a non-elimination round! You get to stay!"

Both team members stared at Don. Then his words kicked in and Dwayne's expression became ecstatic as he cheered their lucky escape from elimination.

Junior? Well, he looked like he didn't really care. Maybe there was a trace of relief there, but it was coupled with a look of nervousness. It made me wonder what had held them up.

Sky's fossil rescue had definitely gotten us a heightened estimation in the eyes of the Vegans. They struck up a conversation with us that evening, so, never one to pass up an opportunity to make friends, I chatted with them. Sky was a little stiff at first, but after the first half-hour, she started to relax a bit and started talking animatedly.

We learned a lot about the Vegans that evening. Actually, they reminded me a little bit of Ella, because they were so humanitarian. They wanted to use the prize money to contribute to animal preservation charities, and start up their own.

"Although, after that Botch or Watch in Calanque de Maubois," Miles admitted, "I'm not so sure about preserving the existence of sharks."

Laurie raised her eyebrows. "You _can't_ hold their natural instincts against them, Miles! Everyone was grabbing at their tails – it's no wonder they felt threatened."

Sky told them all about how she was planning to spend her Pahkitew Island winnings, as well as her half of the million we were aiming for. She'd left it in an account for now. "Once I finish high school, I'm going to use it to hire sports trainers," she said excitedly. "Then I can start training for the Olympics."

I added in my thoughts, although my aim from PI had changed. "While I'm still kind of bothered by living in a Catholic family," I admitted, "Mom and Dad have loosened up a bit with me. So I figured I'll just blow ten grand on a holiday somewhere, and use the rest as a college fund. I've already decided to study Recreation Therapy."

Both the other team and Sky looked interested when I said that. "So, um, what does that entail?" asked Laurie.

I shrugged. "It's like using play and activity to help out troubled people. I've always been into sports but I don't really want to live and breathe nothing but sports. So I figured either become a Gym teacher, or a play therapist. Heaps of people that go through trauma find it easier to bear by keeping busy. Kids are encouraged to play sports or draw, or do pretend play to act out the way they feel and heal from it. The track team was always my escape from my problems, so it seemed like fate."

Even Sky looked impressed when I said that. That night, when Don had told us the race would be restarting in ten hours and we'd decided to get to bed so we had time to freshen up and have breakfast, she said to me "I had no idea you used track as a kind of therapy."

"I don't have any major problems." I told her. "It's just little stuff that everyone worries over. Probably everyone has some activity they jump into to forget the small stuff. Or they meditate. Something like that. The kind of stuff I'll be learning will be for kids who really do need it as therapy. Like remember that tsunami in 2004, on Boxing Day? They even wrote a book about how kids react to traumas like that. I got that book when I was a kid, and there was a section on a little girl from the Maldives who used to love drawing. The story about her talked about how she drew what she saw that day, and there was a section on how art and sports help kids to open up about trauma, release pain, and help them to move on. I'd love to work with that."

Sky nodded. "It sounds like a good idea. Once I've gotten to a point where I'm not at my best any more, maybe I'll study that too."

I knew I hadn't won Sky's trust back yet, but I'd definitely thrown a curveball by saying I wanted to study recreation therapy. I mean, it was true. I'd thought a lot about it – if Sky really wanted to make sure I was telling the truth, she could ask Ella. I'd already discussed it with her, and she said she thought it would really suit me, as well as being a good cause.

The point was, just that piece of information had made Sky second-guess her thoughts on me. She wouldn't quite be my friend yet, but she wasn't sure that I was the sneaky strategist she saw me as. And because of that, I hoped that I was maybe just a step closer to proving I could be trustworthy and fair.

 **I came up with the recreation therapy goal on the spur of the moment, but I think it really is the kind of thing Julie would consider as a career.**

 **By the way, I do not own the book about the tsunami I am referring to. It's a book called "Higher Ground", and it has sixteen stories, each inspired by a child who lived through the tsunami. The story I refer to is called "Colours", and it's about "Aaliya", a little girl who lost her family in the tsunami and draws a picture of the day the tsunami hit. It's one of the bleakest stories, in comparison to ones about a little girl who saved an entire hotel when she recognized the sign a tsunami was about to hit, or even one when a young boy sacrificed his own life for his mother and little sister. There was very little hope in it, but as it says, kids like "Aaliya" began to heal through those kinds of things. The idea is that 'Aaliya" hasn't healed yet, but as she plays and draws more, she'll be able to accept and move forward.**

 **Anyway, my point here is, this is the point where Sky is probably going to be less likely to watch Julie every second to make sure she won't pull anything. She's not trusted yet, but she's cleared one hurdle.**


	7. Chapter 7

**So...Brazil. In the pictures, it looks bright and colourful, in a rustic sort of way. I don't know much about it. Can anyone tell me what it's really like? I've never felt much of a desire to visit South America, but that's probably because I know too little about it. Thanks for reviewing, The Phenomenal Flair, Pokemon FTW, Nicky Haugh, Bloodylilcorpse and SuperKitty4789.**

I have to say, when I woke up the next morning, I felt more connected as a partner to Sky than I had at the start of the race. Like there was more of a comradeship between us.

Even so, we had a bad start. The Vegans got the last seats on the first plane out, and we had to be at the top of the bottom/middle again. This time, we had to share our (later) flight with dairy suppliers. And by dairy suppliers, I actually mean livestock. During the flight, I even heard Taylor complaining about getting excrement on her shoe.

"I'm quitting." she told Kelly straight, starting to walk away.

"You stay, I'll buy you a car." Kelly offered.

Taylor came back. "Okay."

I gave an exasperated sigh and went over to them. "Kelly, excuse me, but I don't think you should get Taylor a car for trying to quit. She's been treating you the way I saw one of my friend's sisters treat her, and it's not good enough. I yelled at her for it at the time, and I really don't want to do it to Taylor. But if you don't put her in her place, than I might have to."

I knew I was being pretty rude there. I couldn't help it. It wasn't easy to say to adults what I'd said to the twins when I was last on a reality show. I quickly finished off with "Just...be Taylor's mom. If she tries to put you down, tell her off for it, and if she tries to undermine your authority, don't let her. I mean, even she told you to take charge yesterday-"

At this point, Taylor cut in. "Excuse _me,_ but who are you to tell _my_ mom how to treat me? I mean, seriously, how much of a loser can you be? You already look like a total disaster, so why act like one? Get lost and mind your own business!"

I shrugged. "Fine, fine. Just thought your mom deserves a better daughter than you." And as I stalked back to Sky, I muttered under my breath "If that girl's anything like Amy, _she'll_ be the loser."

"I heard what Taylor said to you." Sky told me quietly. "Just so you know, you don't look or act like a disaster."

I smiled. "Thanks, Sky. Not that I'd take anything Taylor says seriously anyway, but still, thanks."

Once we reached Brazil, I instantly noticed the heat. It was like a jungle, hot and humid. It was supposed to be winter over there, but it felt more like summer, especially since I was used to Canadian summers.

I got to the Don Box and pushed the button before Sky got the chance. "Botch or Watch, and it's your turn. Your challenge is..." I paused, reading. "There's a bunch of tips in a mitt full of bullet ants. You need to get one out."

Sky gave a nod, and we raced over to find the mitt. She stuck her hand in, her face concentrated, and pulled out a tip. Her hand was swollen and it looked pretty painful, but she didn't say a word about it. "We've got a footrace." was all she said. "Then we have to get across a ravine to a bunch of coconuts, I think. The tip will be in one of them."

We had to use a vine to swing across the ravine. "Let's take separate ones." I suggested. "Otherwise we might break it together."

Sky pretended to look offended. "Hey, I'm not _that_ heavy!"

"Where's all the muscle, then?" I said playfully. "And who says I wasn't talking about me?" We even laughed a little bit together. Sky and I were actually about the same size, just I was slightly taller. But we took a vine each, anyway, and we got across to the hundreds of coconuts safely, along with several mallets

And talk about beginners' luck! We only had to hammer two coconuts each until I found the tip. "All-In." I told Sky. Then I groaned.  
"What's wrong?"

"It's craft. I suck at it. One of us has to make a headpiece, and the other a tail for that Carnival of Brazil thing. You know, all feathers and beads? We have to have it approved by a local, too. I don't mind wearing it if you don't want to, but..."

It was true. Sculpting sand, easy enough. Crafting an outfit? Just the idea sent me running away.

"Okay, look." said Sky. She looked anxious, too, but her voice was calm. "I'll make the headpiece, you make the tail. Look," she pointed out people who were still on the other side of the ravine. "We have enough time to get it right. Just focus on finishing it."

Sky was...sort of right. We didn't lose or anything, but we had to work very slowly to get it right. The local kept refusing MacArthur's less-than-stellar tail (although Sanders' headpiece she was wearing looked all right), so I knew I had to get my part right. By the time we'd finished, we were stuck in seventh place. It wasn't too bad, but I think we both felt like we should've been doing better.

Last, we had to take a hanglider to the Chill Zone, but we were lucky enough to hang on all the way down. The Surfer Dudes had been first down, but they hadn't hung on enough and ended up swimming to shore. We actually finished just after them. Again, not a bad placing, but still not good enough.

I tried to cheer ourselves up again, that evening. The Rockers had ended up going home (Spud had a delayed reaction to everything, including the ant bites, and noticing the pain had delayed them reaching the Chill Zone, so we were all starting to feel nervous. The Rockers had seemed so middle-of-the-road, that it seemed like the weak teams were all gone. How long would it be before the mediocre teams were gone, too, leaving only the good teams? The competiton was starting to really heat up, and we needed a break.

That's why I suggested we go to a restaurant again, or if not, just go to the nearest town for ice cream or something. In fact, the whole race went along to Alaska Ice Cream, in the end. I just ordered a double chocolate waffle cone, while Sky ordered peanut chocolate, but some of the other teams ordered giant sundaes. I listened in on Owen's order purely to see if I got a laugh out of it. I can't even remember what flavour he ordered because it had so many embellishments, but it made me grin.

While we finished our ice creams, I decided to talk to one of the teams we hadn't yet gotten to know. While I'd started becoming pretty friendly with Kitty and we were already friends with the Vegans, I hadn't really talked to some of the really high-ranking teams.

The Ice Dancers had placed high, so I decided to chat to them, and so did Sky. However, after one conversation, I wasn't sure that I liked them. Jacques seemed nice enough, but Josee...well, to make it quick, she didn't say much, but I still sensed something...weird. Like...well, let's just say if she turned out to be another Scarlett, I wouldn't have been surprised.

Sky got along better with them than I did. As an aspiring Olympian, she was really interested to hear that they'd gotten silver in the last Olympics for ice dancing. "I'm planning to use my prize money from last season to hire the best Olympic trainers." she told them. "I mean, I've been training for it all my life, but I'm really going to start properly once I finish high school. What about you?"

"I've been training for gold status all my life, too." Josee told her. "Jacques and I met when I was five and we became partners a few months later, so we've been training together for fourteen years."

"I didn't start that early." Jacques admitted. "I was eight when we met, but I was a natural at skating before I was four years old. I started training properly when I was seven."

Before long, the three of them were swapping strategies and ways to keep in shape and I got bored (after all, I knew nothing about skating and a lot of other sporting events), and went off to introduce myself properly to the Best Friends.

Luckily, they were both really sweet, friendly people. I liked Carrie instantly. She had a very sweet, endearing personality, sort of like a less sugary Ella in that way. She was also a great listener, always seeming interested in what I had to say.

Devin was nice, too, although not such a good listener. He told me all about how he and Carrie had been friends since they met in preschool and how they were really in tune with each other.

That's when I noticed it. As Devin spoke, I noticed the way Carrie was looking at him. It wasn't really a look I'd seen much, but I recognized it from my time on Pahkitew Island. That soft look of admiration...I'd seen the way Dave had looked at Sky in little moments that first week. And when I'd watched the show, I'd seen Jasmine and Shawn with that same expression when they talked in the confessional about each other.

But I don't think Devin saw it. Everything he said communicated to me that all he saw Carrie as was a best friend. He had a lot of fondness for her, but that longing in Carrie's expression made me realize that she was looking for more.

After a while, Devin said "Well, I'm going to head back to the Chill Zone. You coming, homie?"

Carrie glanced around and said "Well, I haven't finished my ice cream yet, so I might stay until then. I'll see you back there soon?"

That gave me the chance to ask. "Um," I said awkwardly, "I know I probably shouldn't ask you this, since we've only just met, but...are you guys dating?"

Carrie jumped. "What? Oh, no, we're just friends! He already has a girlfriend." Her tone became a little sour as she mentioned the girlfriend.

I paused, a thought forming. "But...I saw the way you looked at him. I got the feeling you _want_ to date him."

Carrie's gaze flickered around, like she wanted to get out of the conversation. I waited, and she finally sighed. "Okay, maybe. But I'm not ready to tell him yet, so please don't say anything to anyone. Please!"

I nodded seriously. "Don't worry. I'm good at keeping secrets, and I hope things'll work out."

Then I waited until Sky was finished talking to go back to the Chill Zone.

 **I want to get some interaction with most characters. It's just two teams in particular I could have Julie interact with quickly, as they will be leaving soon. I think I will take out one of them without any interaction, but the others...well, we'll have to see. Hope you liked this chapter. Keep reading!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Well, Transylvania. I vant to come here someday (no, that vas not a typo, my friends). Okay, I'll drop the accent. I haven't ever taken that much of an interest in Romania, but maybe it would be fun to see what made Bram Stoker think this was a place for vampires. Or was it Vlad the Impaler?**

 **Thanks for reviewing, Nicky Haugh, Pokemon FTW, Bloodylilcorpse, The Phenomenal Flair and Guest D.**

We didn't have too much of an advantage over the other teams when we pulled the sixth tip. We had to take a bus to the airport.

"Our next stop is...Transylvania, Romania." Sky told me. "We have to go straight to Dracula's castle when we get there."

I grinned. "Vampire country, huh? That sounds like fun."

The Ice Dancers, who came in first, were being particularly annoying. As we pulled the tip, we could hear them getting to the bus, chanting "First place! First place! First place!" They weren't too pleased when everyone else got on the bus. They got out to make a confessional, and while Jacques spoke directly to the camera, I saw Josee running around, throwing things. I even caught a glimpse of her expression. It was the kind of look that the expression "if looks could kill" was made for.

She slept most of the way to the airport. I even heard her muttering "Stupid show..." between the occasional snore.

"So what do you think of the Ice Dancers?" I asked Sky in a low voice.

Shy shrugged. "They seem okay. The way they smile makes me a bit nervous, but they seem nice." She paused, and added "I know Josee was throwing a tantrum earlier, but she seemed pretty angry back in Morocco, too, when they came in third. From what they told me, first isn't just the winning option to them...it's the only option, so they get kind of tense when they think they might not stay in first place."

Meanwhile, just behind us, the camera was focusing on the Fashion Bloggers. Apparently, after the ice cream, they'd met a fez hat distributor, and Tom ordered a bunch of them so they could turn it into the next craze.

I don't think Jen was as crazy about them, though, because when Tom told her to put her one on, she said "Maybe later."

The Ice Dancers didn't need to get so worried about losing their lead. Well, they got onto the first flight with us, so they still had a lead on at least half their competition. Everyone else got stuck on the second flight. In fact, the only reason the Daters got on the flight was because Stephanie got Ryan to throw her to the front of the queue (I could hear her yelling from fourth in the queue (fifth once Stephanie got in second).

"So who on this flight hadn't we talked to?" I asked Sky.

She shrugged. "I've been paying more attention to the challenges of the game than our competition. I mean, our competition seems nice and everything, but that's why I don't want to get too close to them."

I gave a sigh. "You know, I think you and Emma might get along. You hate alliances, Emma hates alliances. You don't want to talk to the competition, nor does Emma."

Sky paused, looking at me. "What?" I shrugged. "I didn't say I talked to Emma. Kitty told me what I just told you." The Sisters were on the flight, so I eventually left Sky to her own devices and talked to the other teams I knew. I didn't hover near the Sisters for too long, mainly because Emma wasn't looking too pleased that I was getting so friendly with her sister, but I managed to establish at least some rapport with almost everyone else.

The Police Cadets seemed interesting, actually. Sanders had this sort of reasonable air about her, and her open face made me instantly like her. MacArthur wasn't quite as friendly or reasonable, but when I giggled at her aggressiveness, it was infectious enough to get a smile out of her.

Especially when I added "Oh, by the way, just so you know, I'm here to win. I know I seem nice, but that's only because my partner won't let me be anything more. Watch Total Drama Pahkitew Island if you don't believe me."

"We saw part of it before we came on this season." Sanders told me. "We get cable on our TV at the police academy, so we knew who you and Sky were, just not much else."

"Final three." I told her. "I broke my ankle in a footrace halfway through our last challenge – we each got to make our own, and mine cost me the game – and so Sky and Shawn ended up in the finale instead." I shrugged. "Well, Sky had promised to make sure she and Shawn wouldn't let me win after she found out I had been listening to everyone's confessionals. That's the reason I signed up for the race...to prove to Sky that I'm not as mean as she thought and that I can play fair."

MacArthur smiled again. "You listened in on people's secrets? Nice strategy! I wonder if there's a way to do that on here..."

Sanders gave a sigh. "The confessional backdrop we have is pretty soundproof." she told her partner. "And besides, Don gives penalties, and I wouldn't put it past him to consider eavesdropping cheating."

I smiled sweetly. "That's the _other_ reason I don't do it. Sky said she'd make sure we lost if I did things she didn't like, and once I knew Don gave penalties out, I had an extra incentive to play totally fair."

I was pretty pumped up by the time we left the plane. In fact, I was first out of the plane, and first to spot the castle. It was nighttime. I felt as if I'd stepped right into that Belá Lugosi movie, the first _Dracula_ with the strings on the bats and the fake Romanian accent that no one in Romania actually used.

It was pretty creepy. Almost everyone was looking spooked. I say almost, because Crimson and Ennui not only looked unafraid, but awed. I even heard Crimson say "Wow." That was the most emotion I'd seen from either of them.

We were first to the Don Box, with the Daters right behind us. Sky took the tip. "All-In." she told me. "We have to find a coffin in the castle, and..." she paused and gave a sigh. Then she looked back up at me. "I took the tip, which means you have to get into the coffin, and I have to drag it to the graveyard and get a tip from the grave-digger. You're not allowed to help me at all."

I shrugged. "Well, okay. Let's get in there."

We were actually quite lucky to be so evenly matched, even if I might've been a tiny bit faster dragging a coffin with Sky inside. I know for a fact that Stephanie had to drag Ryan. It's not that she was small, but more that he was all muscle. Maybe not as heavy as fat, but still not good.

Noah was smaller than Stephanie, too, and I know he had to drag Owen. That's right, Noah was more brain than brawn, and he had to drag _Owen_ to the graveyard. It's true that tiny Josee had to drag Jacques, but even I could hear him calling out to her to slow down in a mix of French and English. Yeah, even though we were both in coffins, I could still hear.

Worst of all, Junior had to drag his dad. It _had_ to be criminal to make a thirteen-year-old drag an adult that far, but he must have managed it without straining anything too seriously.

Finally, Sky pushed my coffin into an empty grave and called out "All done. You're allowed out."

I was happy to take the tip the grave-digger gave us. "The next Don Box is at a gymnastics training centre." I told Sky. "We have to take horses there...and I just hope you'll have to do whatever the challenge is there." I muttered the last part under my breath. Sky probably knew that, anyway – she was the gymnast.

As it was, guess who actually had to do it? We arrived second, just after the Ice Dancers (we'd passed the Stepbrothers on the way, though), and I slammed my hand on the button.

I took the tip, and gave a groan. "Botch or Watch, and it's my turn. I can't believe it! I have to do a gymnastics course and get a thumbs up?" At least that was the last part of the Challenge, and once we got a thumbs up, we could go to the Chill Zone.

When we got in, I felt a little better. A balance beam was the first item, and I had to do a split jump as part of that (good thing track warm-ups taught me the splits). Then, I had to jump on a springboard and do a flip over a horse.

Okay, that wasn't too hard, but I had to do it twice, so we lost some time. I'm betting Sky could've finished it in one go, but I didn't manage to land on my feet the first time I flipped. As it was, I had to wait to do it a second time until the Reality TV Pros had given Owen enough time to get flipped by the springboard, and that was only after Emma had executed more than one flip from on top of Owen.

I nudged Sky. "Look at Noah!"

Sky looked obediently. "What about – oh!" she gave a gasp. "What happened?"

"I don't know." I answered. "Emma just did this amazing double flip, and Noah went all goofy-looking. Maybe he likes her." I sighed. "That's not good news. I remember Noah being really tough on Owen this season, so he must be desperate to win. And I didn't need to hear it from Kitty to know how seriously Emma's taking it."

At least, when we finally reached the Chill Zone, Don told us "Frenemy Athletes, fourth!" We high-fived. Now that was a placing to enjoy having!

Well, as for everything else that happened...well, the Goths got a penalty. Halfway through the trip to the grave, Crimson had insisted Ennui get a turn in the coffin. They didn't seem to care that Don penalized them for it. Maybe they just both wanted a go because it was part of their goth nightmare fetishes...I know that's a generalisation, but they were so emo that it was way believable.

And...well, okay, I took a major risk that was also a setback. The final two teams were the Fashion Bloggers and the Daters. The Fashion Bloggers were first to reach sight distance (Jen now had her fez on), but the Daters were catching up fast.

And just as they pulled ahead, an impulse came to the fore of my mind and I called out "Hey, fez hats are never ever going to be popular!"

That did it. The Fashion Bloggers managed to pull further ahead with outrage at that comment and hit the Chill Zone just seconds before the Daters.

As Don told the Daters they were out, I apologized to the Fashion Bloggers. "Sorry, guys. I didn't mean what I said – I just didn't want you to get cut, and I figured if anything would make you faster, that would."

But then, I still had to face the wrath of my teammate.

 **Uh-oh! Julie really shouldn't have done anything. Sure, she was thinking of saving the Fashion Bloggers, but to do that, she had to throw the Daters under the bus. At least she has two people who are touched she cared enough to do that, but she also just set back her teamship with Sky.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Okay, so in the aftermath of the Daters' elimination, Sky was not happy that Julie had influenced the outcome. What will happen next?**

 **Oh, and we're coming towards Hawaii. I've only been to Honolulu, but I liked it there. It was friendly and relaxed, and even though the heat could be nightmarish, there was frequent light rainfalls, which cooled me down a bit, and when it stopped, the drying was literally instant. I'm going back there next July! Hopefully I'll bring back a souvenir this time...maybe a T-shirt from the Hard Rock Cafe or the T-shirt store across the street from the hotel I'm staying in (it's just up the street from the one I stayed in last time).**

 **Thank you for reviewing, Nicky Haugh, The Phenomenal Flair, Guest D, PokemonFTW and Bloodylilcorpse.**

"You can't blank me forever, Sky!" I insisted. It was the next day, and Sky hadn't spoken to me since the end of the challenge. "The next challenge is starting in less than an hour, remember. If you won't work with me, you'll need to tell Don that we quit before we go somewhere else."

I finally got a response at this point. Sky finally met my eyes and said "It wasn't your choice to make who stayed and who left. I know you didn't make the Daters or the Fashion Bloggers last, but you weren't supposed to choose who stayed."

"But you know Stephanie was getting too competitive!" I argued. "I may have saved their relationship. Besides, the Fashion Bloggers finished the challenge first, considering they were ahead before the Daters overtook them. As far as I'm concerned, they deserve to stay."

On the other hand, I'd definitely earned some brownie points with the two of them. They even gave me a free fez hat, which I wasn't planning to wear, but I'd definitely keep it in my backpack and take it home with me. I'd need _some_ kind of souvenir to commemorate this race if Sky wanted us to quit now.

"Anyway, " I said, "If you want us to quit, you better go and tell Don now."

Sky sighed. "Look, I don't want to quit. I said I'd give you another chance, and...well...at least you didn't plan that elimination like you did Sugar's. I voted for her, but I realized why you were talking up Ella later on. So I'm going to let it go this time, but next time, you're out."

I sighed too. "There isn't going to be a next time, I swear!"

So we took the fourth tip as the first three set off. "Take a donkey cart to the airport and fly to..." I gave a gasp. "Hawaii!"

The ride was...well, okay. Thing was, one team had to sit up front with the donkeys, while two other teams rode in the cart. We got stuck at the front, pulling the cart with Mom and Daughter, and the Stepbrothers.

"This donkey reeks!" Chet whined.

"He said the same thing about you!" Lorenzo shot back.

"A talking donkey? Yeah, cause that's possible!"

"It must be possible, cause _you're_ talking right now! Boo-yah! Call me when you got a comeback!"

"How old are those guys?" I whispered to Sky, tuning them out. "I think they're actually older than us, and we're better than that!" (I found out later that this was true – both boys were about a year older than us, and the only other contestants our age still in the race were the Adversity Twins).

I didn't talk to the women, either. Taylor, luckily, didn't start anything, and she went up in my estimation. At least she didn't look for chances to make trouble for people. Amy almost certainly would have said something for no reason other than just so she could (and maybe so she didn't feel self-conscious...although I think she'd been a little nicer when she left Pahkitew).

I don't know why I didn't talk to Kelly. Maybe I just couldn't think of anything to say to her. It didn't matter once we got to the airport, anyway. We had no lead, because everyone was on the same flight.

I got the tip when we reached the first Don Box (which, by the way, got dressed up with a Hawaiian shirt – I hoped Don would be replicating the look when we got to the Chill Zone). "Botch or Watch." I told Sky.

"My turn." Sky gave a nod. "So what do I do?"

"We've got a beach to go to." I answered, my eyes zipping across the tip. "There should be a bunch of rings in the water. You have to grab one, and then we've got the next challenge to start on. I meet you on the beach after you've found one."

Sky was a good swimmer, so she didn't look too worried about it. Seconds after we reached the dock, she dived in without a second glance.

I was standing on a dock near the Sisters, so I heard them talking. I didn't hear what Emma said when Sky first dived in, but I heard Kitty's answer. She was looking at the water nervously. "It looks pretty deep." she said uncertainly.

"Pretend it's the pool at Nana's condo, only with less old people floating around." Emma advised. "Ready? Go!" And I stared as she ruthlessly pushed Kitty off the dock.

The other sister emerged from the ocean, coughing. "You shoved me!" she accused.

"It was a push of encouragement!" Emma insisted, sounding like she didn't even care. "And you're fine! Now go get a ring!"

Kitty complied, but I didn't need to do anything. I just had to wait for Sky, which gave me enough time. "What the hell, Emma?" I asked her without caution. "I don't get why you keep doing this. I mean, _my_ partner is kind of mad at me right now, but you're being meaner to your sister than she is to me. And I've been watching you two in challenges. What's your deal?"

Emma looked surprised, as if she hadn't even thought of that. "I'm just trying to win." she said in a reasonable tone. "You're trying to win, too. It's a game."

I nodded, softening slightly. I sort of understood what Emma meant. She wasn't necessarily just mean and nothing more. In other words, she wasn't Amy. But still... "That's not really any excuse for pushing Kitty around." I pointed out. "You can't honestly tell me that you think she isn't doing enough. She told me that you two haven't been getting on that well so far. Can't you just be a little nicer to her?"

"Is this really any of your business?" Emma said, obviously getting irritated with me. "Worry about your own team!"

I shrugged. "Whatever, Emma. It's your choice."

Conveniently, Sky emerged from the water less than a minute later, a ring in her outstretched hand. "Yes!" I cheered. "See you in a second!" I ran, headed straight for the beach. In fact, the minute Sky was on the beach (in soaked clothes, they didn't get to wear swimsuits), my hand was on the tip button.

We weren't the first, by the way. The Ice Dancers had beat us to the beach and were getting ready.

"All-In." I told Sky. "We have to...wait, this is a marriage ritual?"

Sky looked over my shoulder. "So...okay, one of us has to carry the other over hot coals." We also had to wear attire. The "bride" wore a grass skirt, the "groom" wore a wreath of these local leaves that I'm not going to attempt to spell.

Well, I had to make things up for getting the Daters tossed. So it was time I started trying. "Let's get a grass skirt for you." I said determinedly. "You had to carry me last challenge, so it's my turn."

We took a little time getting the skirt tied, enough for a few teams to catch up. I was standing near the Best Friends, so when Carrie asked Kitty to help her tie her skirt, I heard her whisper "You really think I should say something to Devin?"

"Life's short, and he's really cute too!" Kitty told her. "What if he feels the same way?"

I managed to get a moment to whisper to Kitty "You know about her and Devin?"

Kitty grinned and nodded. "You know too?"

I shrugged. "It took a few minutes of talking, but yeah, I could tell."

Kitty smiled again. "It's like I'm a love detector. I can always tell."

I grinned. "Oh? Then you won't mind telling me whether that goofy look on Noah's face last challenge meant anything or not."

Kitty giggled, and gestured over to Noah, who had that same expression _again..._ and yeah, he was staring at Emma.

"Wow!" I laughed. "Does Owen know?"

Kitty paused, thinking. "I don't think so." she said finally. "I guess I better let him know, then he can help me get them together!" And with that, she went off to speak to Owen.

By that time, Sky had finished tying her skirt on, and we got walking. The Ice Dancers had already had one try, but had to run back when Jacques caught fire. We ended up having to run back too, when the cuffs of my jeans got slightly singed, but we had luck on our side.

"You were walking too slowly." Sky told me. "You need to run. And also, did you hear what the other team was saying?"

We'd been passed by the Surfer Dudes. I shook my head.

"They were saying all this stuff about really cold days." Sky told me. "Remember the cold times and focus on those as you run."

So I did. And this time, it worked! Going fast and thinking of cold really helped me not to focus too much on the burning sensation in my toes and heels and I didn't catch on fire, either. Still, it was a relief to step onto the sand and put Sky down. Then, it was just a footrace to the Chill Zone.

"Frenemy Athletes, second place!" Don greeted us.

I cheered. "Yes! That's the highest we've been so far!" Sky smiled and gave a cheer, so I assumed that was a good sign.

"Am I forgiven for last challenge?" I asked her.

Sky thought about it. "I'm not going to be mad at you about it, but you still have yet to prove to me that you can go more than a few episodes playing fair."

The Fashion Bloggers seemed to be doing better than they had last challenge, although I think they might've been held up, judging by the blackened part of their clothes, even though Jen's grass skirt was completely clean of burned parts. Maybe they'd had to pick off the burned bits. The Best Friends came after us, but they would've been fourth if the Ice Dancers hadn't tripped (yeah, I couldn't believe it either).

The last to arrive were Mom and Daughter, but Kelly seemed relieved to find that it was a non-elimination round. Taylor? Not so much. "You need to step your game up, for serious."

"We're a team, Taylor." Kelly reminded her.

Taylor ignored that. "I know that you're not used to winning, like me, but maybe you need to follow my example more, cause-"

"You've never won anything in your life, Taylor, never! Not one race, not one medal, NOTH-THING!"

Wow. I don't think I was the only one shocked when Kelly said that. She'd been a pushover all season so far, and now, she was suddenly yelling at Taylor.

Taylor herself was staring at her mother. "Wait, _what?_ My room is full of trophies and medals!"

"Because your dad bought a trophy store!" Kelly pointed out. "What kind of trophies come in the mail? And guess who paid your coaches to lie?"

Taylor looked horrified, grasping at straws. "Beauty pageants!" she said desperately. "I've won beauty pageants! You can't fake those!"

"Oh, honey," Kelly said, "When you have enough money, you can fake anything."

Actually, now I thought about it, everything that just happened...that made sense. Taylor didn't seem like a winner all the time, yet she clearly thought she was the best at everything. Amy had been the same way, but I knew that was because she felt like she was constantly in competition with her sister – I mean, being identical, comparison was going to be a natural thing (plus Sammy told me their sisterly relationship went off the rails when both girls noticed that most of their friends liked her better), but for Taylor...well, I just dismissed her behaviour of that of a spoilt brat. Now I knew why Taylor treated Kelly the way Amy treated Sammy – it wasn't because she felt like she was in competition with her...it was because she was used to winning everything. And now...well, let's be honest. I knew those two were never going to win this competition.

I decided not to think too much about it, though. This was Hawaii, after all, and I was not going to let anything ruin a visit to paradise. We weren't leaving until tomorrow afternoon, so I was going to make the most of my time here.

So I decided to talk to one of the teams I'd meant to talk to, but never got the chance. "Hey, Owen, Noah!" I called over, going up to them. "I don't think I've gotten to talk to you guys before. Unless you count that time after my season on Total Drama. But I've meant to talk to you. I mean, how many reality shows have you been on?"

Owen started counting off on his fingers. "Well, Total Drama, of course, and then there's-"

"Eight so far." Noah cut him off.

I shrugged. "So how does this one rank up? Better than Total Drama, I'm guessing."

"I liked Total Drama!" Owen said enthusiastically. "In fact, I liked all the shows! But yeah...I think I like this one better."

"This one is better just because Chris isn't here." Noah said flatly.

I giggled. "Okay, now that's the kind of comment the fans listen to you for, but you're right. You know what Chris did on our season? For starters, he electrocuted us, and tried to give everyone food poisoning, and then left us to die and wouldn't even try to help us properly. And one of our competitors tried to have everyone but her die, and he still wouldn't do anything to stop her!"

"Wow." Owen said, his usually cheerful expression dropping. "That's scary."

"Well, we survived." I said brightly. "This race is pretty good, though. And hey, Noah!" I nudged him. "I see you've finally got someone to admire!" I walked away before he had a chance to reply, or work out that I was referring to Emma.

None of us went to get ice cream this time, but a lot of us went swimming properly to get away from the sun. We had our swimsuits, after all. Sky swam on her own, but I engaged in a water fight with some of the others – mostly Junior, Lorenzo, Kitty – even Jen joined in, although she screamed if anyone aimed for her hair (Tom was in the water too, but he stayed out of range).

Overall, Hawaii had been a lot of fun. I just had to hope that the next day would bring as fun a location.

 **Sorry for the delay. Life's been getting on top of me. Not sure when the next chapter will come out, but I have some deviation plans, so hope you'll like them!**


	10. Chapter 10

**All right. So...Dubai. I really want to go there, but I haven't managed to yet. Thanks for reviewing, The Phenomenal Flair, Nicky Haugh, Pokemon FTW, yeezynight14, Bloodylilcorpse and Guest D.**

Even though we had the whole morning in Hawaii, no one got up to go swimming early, apart from maybe some of the really sporty ones. By the time I got up, most of the others were either still asleep or just emerging.

Sky actually had to wake me. She was already dressed by the time she got me up, so I could help pack up the tent and things, but she admitted that she'd slept later than usual. "If I was on my usual schedule, I probably would've gone for a swim," she said, looking a bit embarassed at admitting she hadn't, "But, you know, on a show like this where we're constantly changing timezones..."

I nodded. "Maybe we'll be lucky and our next location will be only five hours out of Hawaii, not thirteen!" I joked (Though I hadn't kept track of time differences before, I hadn't felt affected by them too much thus far).

Still, despite the faraway place, I got really excited when I heard where we were going. "We're going to...Du-by-eh?" Brody read out loud.

"Dubai?" I whispered to Sky as we got our travel tip. She gave a nod.

We were lucky enough to get on the first flight, but then again, it wasn't so surprising, considering we'd made it into second place. However, second place was still the first loser as far as the show was concerned. The Surfer Dudes got to have an awesome time on the flight in the best First Class section in the world. As for us, we had to sit a couple of rows behind the section, hearing their excited cheers and whoops.

But there was at least one team who was more envious than anyone else. They were right in front of us, so we heard it all.

"That hot tub should be ours!" Jacques complained. "How did we place fourth?"

Josee was cross, too. She saw herself as a failure, for not even attaining third place, or as she referred to it, "bronze". Then she took out a little object. I couldn't see it properly, but I heard Jacques say "Josee's replaced her lucky rabbit's foot with a pretty rock. Oh, our luck is bound to improve!"

Josee sounded very ominous, yet excited as she spoke again. "Forged from fire, this lava rock embodies my fiery determination to win!" Then, she gave the most evil cackle I'd ever heard outside of a cartoon. No, seriously!

"You mean our determination to win, right?" Jacques reminded her.  
"Huh?" Josee's voice seemed back to normal. "Oh yeah, sure."

Well, I'd heard enough. It was time to do a good deed. I unbuckled my seatbelt and went over. "Um, did I just hear something about a lava rock? Because if you got it from Hawaii, you're probably going to have to get used to fourth place, because that thing won't let you win."

Josee stared at me coldly. "What are you talking about?"

I shrugged. "Just that taking lava rocks from their volcano's habitat is major bad luck. The only way you can get back in the running for the million dollars is to take it back."

But what a surprise, neither of them listened to me. Not even a multitude of bags falling on Jacques from the overhead lockers convinced them. In the end I gave up and flopped back down on my seat next to Sky.

It looked like my attempt to help out another team had helped, though. Sky was actually giving me a look that had no dislike in it. "That was a nice thing for you to do, Julie." she remarked, a slight note of surprise in her voice.

I shrugged. "Well, nice or not, it didn't work. Unless they come to their senses quickly, they'll end up coming in last during an elimination round and then they'll have lost their chance. The curse has already started – fourth is their lowest placing yet!"

The flight was pretty long, so I took a few walks. Pretty early on, I noticed Noah and Emma near the back, talking, so I went to hang out with their partners.

"What's going on?" I asked, interested.

"We were just talking about getting those two together." Kitty told me, pointing over to the other two.

"We don't think it's gonna be easy, but we can definitely do it!" Owen said excitedly.

"Well, let me know if I can help." I grinned. "I tried to make sure Shawn and Jasmine knew the other liked them on my last show. And speaking of, if either of you want me to hook you up with someone, just let me know and I'll see if I can help." As I spoke, I wondered if Owen was in a relationship or not. He had been for a while, but then he got dumped. I mean, there was a whole song about it.

As I thought that, Owen spoke. "Well, I'm fine. I got back with Izzy after she went back to being...well, Izzy."  
I smiled again. "That's really good news! I'd wondered if that happened after the whole Brainzilla thing. I figured that you'd change your mind about breaking up with her. She's worth it, right?"

Owen gave a chuckle. "Totally right!"

Kitty giggled, too. "By the way," she added, "It sounds to me as if you do have some matchmaking to do, remember?"

I didn't know if Owen knew about the Best Friends, so I said "Oh, yeah, so I do! But it's going to take getting it out in the open to make anything happen."

After the seventeen hours of sleeping, wandering around and watching movies, we finally arrived and got to the Don Box. I pushed the button and Sky pulled out the tip.

"Serve or Squeegee." she read. "We either have to each return a tennis serve from a machine or scrub a whole column of windows. We'll have to wait in line for turns to return the serves, but it's only one from each of us."

"Yeah...well, it'll save us the most time if we just have to return one serve." I mused out loud. "I mean, for me, at least. How are you at tennis?"

"Well, all right." Sky said. "It's not my favourite sport, but I can return most serves."

Well, the Tennis Menace was not what we were expecting. It took us several tries to finish it – no one had finished by the time the other teams arrived, and even then, half the teams switched. In fact, the only reason the twins hadn't switched was because they couldn't stand the sound of the sponge on windows.

As it was, they actually managed to return both their serves before anyone else. Jacques had done a perfect serve, but Josee's couldn't have been much worse, so they switched.

We were second to return serves. Sky went up first, holding the racket tightly. Then she swung, and the ball bounced off her racket like lightning.

For me, I almost lost my grip on the thing, I swung so fast, but it happened. The racket stayed in my hand, and the ball bounced.

Then, we finally were told to take a taxi to a golden mall where we'd find the Chill Zone.

After we got out of the taxi, I stopped for a second at a store where a familiar face grinned out of tons of little gold statues.

"Look!" I nudged Sky. "Gilded Chris statues! I have got to find Sierra's blog when I get home so she can hear about this – she said on the show her mom has a major crush – she'll probably fly straight here just to get one!"

As it was, we ended up in sixth place. Not too bad of a placing, I guess – we were beaten by the Sisters, Reality TV Pros, Adversity Twins, Ice Dancers and Father and Son (how did they get ahead of us?). But the minute I was there, I could tell there had been some major screaming and throwing stuff earlier. Gold shards were all over the floor.

After Don announced our placing, that was when it happened. Josee came straight up to me and said breathlessly "How do we break the lava rock curse?"

I frowned. "What? You didn't believe me before. Why now?"

"Because we made fourth place again – you were right!" Josee said. "Just tell me!"

I shrugged. "I think we've got a free day here. You can use that to take it back to Hawaii. But it does run the risk of you not getting to wherever we're supposed to go next."

We weren't actually going to be setting off until early evening the next day, but there were still more teams to come before we could leave the Chill Zone.

When the Best Friends arrive, Don told them "You're the last to arrive." Both looked dismayed, until "My mistake! Here come Mom and Daughter now! You are still in the race!"

In walked the last team. "Hey hey hey, look who got their bling on!" Taylor announced as they stepped onto the carpet. Yeah, you got that. They didn't check in because...they'd gone shopping! I guess they'd made up their fight after the whole Taylor-never-won-anything...uh, thing.

Oh well. I was glad to have them out of the race. I mean, I chose to ask Sky to race with me instead of Amy. Taylor was almost as annoying.

 **Sorry, I know I'm taking ages with the chapters. I'm not very inspired at the moment. And I know it seems like I'm not doing much with the kept teams, but I do have plans for them next episode, so never fear!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Right. So...let's keep going. China. I've been to Shanghai and gotten some bootleg stuff, but my cheongsam's button kept coming undone, and within a month the hem came off, so I had to chuck it. Additionally, I got stared at because of my skin and eyes – and probably my hair, too. It's so easy for a girl with Jewish heritage to stick out in East Asia, but at least Japan likes blondes (I'm not blonde any more, but I was when I was twelve and visited Japan). Thanks for reviewing, Lord Of The Sloths, Pokemon FTW, Nicky Haugh, Bloodylilcorpse, DannyPhantom619 and The Phenomenal Flair.**

 **And for those of you who are confused about who is left in, the current teams are: Adversity Twins, Best Friends, Fashion Bloggers, Father and Son, Frenemy Athletes (of course), Goths, Ice Dancers, Police Cadets, Reality TV Pros, Sisters, Stepbrothers, Surfer Dudes, and Vegans.**

The Ice Dancers probably did go to Hawaii, because I didn't see them at all the next day. Everyone went sightseeing or shopping for the day in Dubai. Most people split up into different groups. Me? Sky wasn't really interested in the clothes, but I was, so I tagged along with the Fashion Bloggers.

"I need a new look, anyway." I theorized. "I'd love it if you two could help me put together something fashionable that complements my look."

And they did. Being dark with black hair, they insisted I try on some Lucky Brand black jeans, and paired it with a deep pink cardigan.

"There!" Jen exclaimed when I emerged from the changing rooms. "Now that's fashionable."

"Still, a new shirt in a different colour would help..." Tom said slowly, eyeing my track team top with disapproval. Two minutes later, I was wearing a tight black T-shirt underneath the cardigan, showing off all my curves and making my muscle actually look good – I mean, I wasn't beefy, but track running didn't exactly make me a waif.

I paid for the whole outfit and thanked the Fashion Bloggers. "You have just garaunteed yourself a new follower!"

I had planned to check out their blog when I got home anyway, but after that shopping trip, it was a definite thing.

The Ice Dancers were still absent when it came time to head out to our next location. But they had apparently told Don that they were going to Hawaii, so he'd agreed that as long as they got back and did the challenge when they could, they could still compete. However, they'd have to stop in Dubai again and hit the Don Box before they could go to the new location.

I grabbed the tip first when it was our turn. I shrugged. "Well, the Ice Dancers are toast, I see."

"What do you mean?" Sky asked.

"Look!" I thrust the tip at her. "They're in Hawaii. Even if they're flying back here right now, it's a seventeen hour flight, and then look where we have to go from there!"

Sky sighed. "Okay, okay. Yeah, China's a way away. But if they are on their way back here, they might have less of a disadvantage. Who knows, maybe the challenge will be gymnastics-based and they'll be able to get it done super quickly."

"Okay, and then once we get there, we need to get to the Birds' Nest stadium."

We made it onto the first flight as usual. And this time, we even got the first tip when we reached the right place via shuttle. Yeah, so it was because we were sitting nearest the door. So what? And the shuttle had knocked the Don Box over and it was spitting out tips all over. Who cares?

"All-In." I told Sky. "We have to tandem jump into the 'doughnut' hole of the stadium."

Most of us went up in the plane and got ready in a very short amount of time plane took three at a time, so we went up at the same time as the Reality TV Pros and Sisters.

"That's the doughnut?" Owen said incredulously, staring at the reflective surface of the stadium (only with a hole in it. "Disappointed!"

We got hooked up to the double parachutes pretty easily. I was at the back, just as all the taller people were, like Owen and Kitty.

"So, I guess they have our backs?" Noah joked shakily. Then he sighed.

"Yep, that was horrible." Emma said bluntly. However, I was close enough to hear her whisper to Kitty "That was actually really adorable!" Awww, it looked like this romance was going to work!

As it was, the two of them both failed and had to try again. Before we had our go, Sky stuck an arm out of the plane. "Aim left." she told me. "Otherwise we'll be blown off-course like them."

Which meant that we had another All-In to start. We had to go off to some stall in the middle of Bejing. One of us would skewer a variety of Chinese street foods and deep-fry it. The other would have to eat it, then we'd get a tip from the vendor.

"You wanna prep or eat?" I asked Sky as we headed to the stall.

Sky thought about it for a moment. Then she said "I'll eat. You did the last eating challenge."

I was touched. "Hey, thanks."

Sky actually laughed. "Well, it's not really a kindness. Maybe I'm just hoping you'll get stung by the scorpion!"

Still, that had to be a really good sign, that she was comfortable enough to joke about me getting hurt. I wasn't about to assume that Sky trusted me yet, but she definitely liked me more than she had at the start of the race.

We didn't place as high as you might think, mainly because of the last part of the challenge. It was a Botch or Watch, and it was my turn. Lucky I hadn't eaten, because I had to pull a rickshaw to the Chill Zone, and Sky was starting to look vaguely ill from the "food" she'd choked down.

Everyone else from both flights had already arrived, except for the Ice Dancers, of course. Crimson was freeing the live bats, while Carrie had gone pale and haggard, barfing the minute Devin said the word "worms". As for Laurie and Miles, they looked horrified at the idea of the challenge at all, and were arguing over who would eat and who would prep, neither of them wanting to do either.

Anyway, the thing was, we had a map to the Chill Zone with our tip, but it didn't tell us which fork in the road was the right one, so we wasted a good twenty minutes running down the wrong path, then turning back to find and take the other path. By that time, the TV Reality Pros, Sisters, Fashion Bloggers, Police Cadets, and Vegans. However, we got fifth place.

"We told the vendor we'd rather take a penalty than do the challenge," Miles explained in her gentle voice, "And she let us have the tip. We figured we might as well try to place high, but Don's given us a two-hour penalty, so we're not expecting a miracle."

Laurie looked more disappointed. "I thought we could do this without hurting anyone," she said sadly, "But this challenge beat us. But it's more important to stick to our morals than win." Then she smiled bravely. "We'll just have to work harder at our causes!"

I smiled back at them. "You might get lucky." I told them. "The Ice Dancers had to go back to Hawaii after last challenge, so it might take a while for them to get here and finish."

Alas, it wasn't meant to be. The Ice Dancers still lost, but then Don revealed that it was a non-elimination round. "However," he said sternly, now speaking to the Vegans, "I have heard from my producers that I wasn't meant to give you a penalty after all. No. You didn't just cheat, you skipped an _entire_ challenge. Which means, you are disqualified."

The Vegans exchanged glances, looking shocked. Then Laurie spoke up, looking Don straight in the eye. "At least we stuck to our morals. That was more important than the game. I'm not sorry we did it."

Don shrugged. "Well, whatever. You two are still out."

At least they got their leaving confessional.

As for the rest of us? Well, we all set off for some real, actually _good_ Chinese food. Those of us who didn't eat the skewers were hungry, and most of the ones who did had spewed and had empty stomachs.

Not all of us went to the same place. I whispered to Kitty to let Noah and Emma go somewhere by themselves if they wanted to, and that worked. Jacques and Josee also didn't want to hang around with the rest of us. Everyone else broke off into little groups in different teams. Kitty and Owen ended up with us, as well as the Surfer Dudes and Police Cadets, and we all squeezed into a cute little place called Mr Shi's Dumplings.

"Dumplings are so awesome!" Brody exclaimed. "I can eat, like, fifty in one day!"

MacArthur's eyes immediately lit up. "Bet you can't eat more than I can!"

"How much do you bet?" Brody shot back.

And five minutes later, we were all laughing and making bets. Owen had gotten in on that action, and now he, Brody and MacArthur were all deadlocked to see who ate more dumplings. Me, I bet on Owen. MacArthur was tough, but was she that tough? And I already had a feeling that Brody would let her beat him if he could.

"You know, the Sisters and Reality Pros are in an alliance." I muttered to Sky. "I know you're not into it, but it might be the only way to stay in the game."

"We're not exactly in danger of losing right now." she whispered back. "If you're really still into making an alliance, can we look into it when we're actually in need of one? If it's not absolutely necessary, I'm not going to rely on someone else to help me get further."

Well, that was all fine and good. But I still made an effort to be friendly with the other teams. They were both pretty strong. And since I was sitting between Sky and Kitty, but directly across from Geoff, it was pretty easy to make conversation with everyone.

Yeah. China had been fun.

 **I looked up a few restaurants in Beijing, and Mr Shi's Dumplings looked pretty good. Now I really want gyoza (yeah, I know that's Japanese dumplings, not Chinese, but shut up, it's good). Hope you liked the chapter! Sorry these are taking so long to get out.**


	12. Chapter 12

**All right! Finland. I haven't been to that extreme part of Europe where the sun either never goes down or never comes up, and to be honest, I don't know if I want to go. It would probably mess up my sleep schedule more than the time difference. Tell me the cool stuff about it there! Crimson and Ennui say that goth is mainstream there, which is cool. Is it true?**

 **Thanks for reviewing, Lord Of The Sloths, Pokemon FTW, The Phenomenal Flair, Bloodylilcorpse, SuperKitty4789 and DannyPhantom619.**

I was actually quite sorry to leave China the next morning, but we had to get onto the next leg of the race. However, in the morning before we left, I got a little surprise. Jacques sought me out. "Thank you for letting us know about the lava rock." he said, his smile more genuine than usual. "We feel as if we've been given a second chance."

"Well, I'll just have to remember to be scared of you and Josee." I quipped with a grin. "Now that there's nothing holding you back, I'm expecting we'll never manage first place!"

Josee had been hovering further back, but as I said that, she came forward and said "That's what we're counting on. We may owe you one, but we are going to win the gold, no matter what it takes!"

I smiled calmly. "Just like the rest of us are going to try to. Good luck, not that you'll need it."

Later on, I told Sky about that conversation. She frowned a little bit. "What does Josee mean, that she owes us but she's only interested in winning? Does that mean we can't call in a favour from them, or that we can but they'd rather we didn't?"

I shrugged. "Whichever it is, I intend to stay on their good side. They seem like a pretty dangerous team if you cross them. I can already tell that it's really easy and really dangerous to get Josee angry." There had been a lot of competitors on Total Drama that it was dangerous to cross, but I had a feeling I'd have to face Eva and Courtney at the height of their tempers to match Josee when she was in a rage.

I slammed my hand onto the tip box fifth, and Sky pulled out the tip. "We're flying to Finland." she told me. We went to grab our airport taxi, discussing what we knew about it.

"It's one of those countries where it's either never light, or never dark." I said thoughtfully. "And it's winter here..."

"So we're going to be in the dark, I guess." Sky gave a sigh. "Oh well."

Everyone was on the same flight, so that was pretty good for us. We spent the first couple of hours going through all the information the plane had about sights and sounds we could look for, so we could start guessing about the challenges.

"Goth seems to be a mainstream thing." Sky remarked to me. "You think you can look goth?"

I gave her the moodiest look I could muster, and it actually made her laugh.

I grinned. "Can you do it?" Yeah, her look of moodiness made me giggle too. "I think we'll do. What else is in Finland?"

We found information on saunas, heavy metal and a few other things, but most of the sights weren't too exciting-sounding.

We were fourth off the plane, but we were third in the challenge, where we reached the place that seemed to have saunas everywhere (yes, our research had paid off!). You see, Noah and Owen had gotten to the Don Box (now with just a towel on) first, but they were waiting for the Sisters. "Still top three." Noah was reassuring Owen as we arrived.

Yeah, the Goths had beaten us to the Don Box, as had the Fashion Bloggers, but that was all right. This time, Sky pushed the button and I read the tip. "Okay, we have to sit in a sauna for ten minutes, fully clothed. There'll be another team joining us next."

As more teams followed and we jumped into a sauna, I heard Owen say "Eighth place."

We were joined by the Ice Dancers in seconds. And while the ten minutes was...well...pretty torturous for us, at least we were wearing summery loose clothing. My jeans were uncomfortable and Sky kept glancing down at her Converse as if she was dying to take them off, but we didn't. I think I was actually the luckiest of the four of us, because my hair was still done up and left my neck exposed, while Sky's loose hair was probably not making it any easier for her.

As for the Ice Dancers, they were in polyester with furry jackets. Jacques was in a jumpsuit, and the first words out of his mouth after a minute were "Why are ice dancing clothes so well-insulated? You know, maybe the bad luck hasn't worn off."

Josee just scowled. Her usually perfect ponytail had gone askew. It looked like you could literally squeeze the sweat out of it. I think her pain must have been even worse than Jacques, because she was wearing leg warmers. On the other hand, at least part of her was exposed, so she was lucky with that.

Still, whatever the circumstances, it was a relief to get out of all that steam. The tip had said the next box was just across a semi-frozen river, so we knew where to head next. Well, that would have been okay, except we actually got knocked into the Goths...and the river itself.

"Hey, what's the idea?" I called out. I got my answer in the form of another competitor who'd made it out of her sauna seconds after us.

Kitty was rubbing at herself frantically, but it only got worse when the rest of her alliance appeared and Owen prepared to jump into the river. Sky and I had to swim to the other side as quickly as possible. More and more people were finishing their sauna challenge and the river was only a two-minute run.

Okay, the only reason we got to the Don Box before the Goths was nothing to do with us. As the team ahead of us hauled themselves out of the river, they'd lost two things. Makeup – and wigs.

What a shock! Under all that pale makeup and dark expressions, Crimson and Ennui actually looked like nice, normal teens. In fact, they were actually kind of cute-looking. However, one look at each other and in the mirror made them both scream.

"My face!" Ennui exclaimed.

"Don't look at me!" Crimson cried.

Sky had already grabbed the tip from the box. "Botch or Watch." she stated. "And I think it's my turn."

"So what do you have to do?" I asked.

"Play air guitar, I think." Sky checked the tip again. "I think I have to go on a stage, and get a certain amount of applause before we can go to the Chill Zone. If enough people start booing, I have to wait to try again while everyone else tries."

We got to the auditorium long enough to see several fails, so we knew that Sky shouldn't smile or look like she was trying too hard. "Did you see that episode of the second season of Total Drama?" I asked. "Maybe you should try pretending like you were playing the way Duncan tried – not caring. But obviously make it more showy and flashy."

At that moment, Sky belched. Oh yeah...I forgot she did that when she was nervous. Yeah, I knew she wasn't really the kind of person who knew how to perform when she wasn't in a sports challenge. Hmmm...

"I wonder...can you do that on command?" I asked. "It might be the touch that we need."

Sky shook her head. "I think I could, but I'm not sure they'll like it. If my first try doesn't work, I'll do it on my second try and see what happens."

Regardless of us, though, everyone was bad. Noah was hopeless, no matter what he did, it seemed, and Mickey kept freezing up. Half the time, Jay had to drag him offstage when he'd lost.

Worst of all was the Goths. First, when Don saw them backstage, he didn't believe they were who they said they were. They were wearing the same clothes, but had put paper bags over their heads. Don only believed them when Crimson pointed out the camera crew. Then, when Ennui took a turn at the challenge, his paper bag fell off, and all of us backstage heard someone in the crowd yelling "Get off the stage, preppy!"

And...yeah, Sky didn't do much for the crowd first time around. By the time she was done, everyone had arrived and she'd have to wait for every team to take another turn before we could try again.

Second time around, people finally started thinking of ways to make themselves memorable. MacArthur, Kitty and Jacques all got approved before we had our second turn. They were all doing something out of the ordinary, like I'd suggested.

That was how we made it to the Chill Zone in fourth place. How strange, that Sky's tic catapulted us past several other teams. But hey, I wasn't complaining.

The Ice Dancers still hadn't won a leg since Transylvania, but they'd at least made it into second place. They still didn't look completely happy, but it was their best leg since Hawaii, so they weren't furious. Well, I think I would've been able to tell by this point if Josee had thrown a tantrum, and there were a lot of things to throw around the Chill Zone.

As for the Goths? Well, they turned up at the Chill Zone before the Adversity Twins or the Reality TV Pros, in new makeup and outfits that made them look even scarier than before. "That went well." Ennui commented.

With the final two, I wondered who would finish first all the way up until I saw the final continuing team.

Well, Don had to go back to tell the last team they were out. And...wow, the Adversity Twins had lost it! I had sort of expected them to get far, like little Cameron from the fourth season. Maybe they didn't have his brains and wouldn't make it to the end, but this was sort of early midway. In other words, a total shocker.

That night, I decided it was time to discuss strategy with Sky. "Right now, we're playing fair and that's all." I said. "Isn't there anything else we can do other than trying our hardest that means playing fair?"

Sky thought about it. "I guess our only option is to make nice with everyone else." she said finally. "There's a few people that I'm worried will get very vindictive if we get in their way. So what we need to do is stay out of their way-"

"And as long as it doesn't put us or anyone else at a disadvantage, we could do them the occasional favour?" I suggested.

Sky raised an eyebrow at me, but said "Maybe. Anyway, the Ice Dancers already owe you. I think they're one of the teams to watch out for, but as long as we leave them alone, they'll probably leave us alone. I'm more worried about MacArthur. She's the worst right now."

I shrugged. "Well, probably. She thought my strategies last season were good. I think Sanders will balance her out, though."

That conversation showed me something. I think Sky was finally starting to trust me a little bit again. She didn't trust me completely, but I could tell that progress was improving. Another few legs, and I'd really have earned it back.

 **Sorry this chapter was so slow coming! I hope you liked it regardless.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Okay. Zimbabwe, huh? Well, never been to anywhere in Africa at all, actually. But at least it's sunny! Thanks for reviewing, Nicky Haugh, SuperKitty4789, DannyPhantom619, Lord of the Sloths, The Phenomenal Flair and Pokemon FTW.**

We didn't spend too much time in Finland. It was winter there, so even though we left at noon the next day, it felt more like twilight.

Still, that's exactly why we were so excited when we checked our next tip. I was the person reading, this time. "We have to get to Helsinki Airport." I told Sky. "Then we have to fly to Zimbabwe, and...I'll tell you the next bit when we get there."

Sky smiled. "Let's go!" She actually looked more excited than usual. Huh, that was interesting. Well, it wasn't like we went to that many African countries in this game. Even in World Tour, they didn't go to many. Most places were either in Asia or Europe. Well, they did go to Australia, and to a couple of places in North and South America, but I couldn't remember any places in Africa apart from Tanzania and maybe Egypt.

We were observing some of the other teams as we waited. The Father-Son team didn't seem too harmonious. Dwayne insisted on hanging on to both their tickets (giving Junior a paper cut when he took them), and then asked if a lollipop would help.

"I'm not a baby." Junior protested to him. "Candy's not going to work."

"A balloon?" Dwayne suggested.

Honestly! Junior was, what, thirteen? Candy was not exactly a priority unless you were four years old. Six, at the very oldest. If Dwayne really wanted to cheer Junior up, a trip to a ski resort or an hour's go-karting would be way more appealing.

Sky and I discussed what we knew about Zimbabwe on our flight. "Chances are Victoria Falls will be involved." Sky said analytically. "It's the biggest waterfall in the world, if I remember correctly. And since it's possibly the only African country we'll visit, it's probably going to play stereotype and we'll have to do some safari-type challenge."

I checked the tip. "Yep, we have to go to Victoria Falls. That's where the next Don Box is. I just hope they're not going to make us hunt an Ezekiel knockoff." I joked. "Did you see that episode?"

Sky managed a small smile as she nodded. "But I don't remember that much about it."

"Okay, so what they did was they had to use slingshots to shoot little balls with tranquilizers inside them at Ezekiel, who'd gone completely feral by that point. At one point they accidentally shot _each other_ and Chris demanded they sing, no matter how hard it was to wake up."

"So who won?"

I gave a sigh. "Alejandro. I think it was the only individual challenge he won in that season, actually. I don't know how he managed to get past the merge."

Sky laughed a little. "Well, you got to the final three, didn't you?"

I shrugged, grinning. We had to be making progress if she was going to joke about it. "I didn't make the finale. Let's be honest here – even if my ankle was okay, I have no idea how I would've pulled off Shawn's challenge."

Luckily, Europe wasn't far from Africa, but Finland was north, so we were probably passing over Spain and Greece as we talked. Still, I couldn't see anything from the clouds. At least the sky was a pretty blue, so it looked like we'd actually get some light once we reached Zimbabwe.

It was true. Still, the airport was LOUD. It seemed like everywhere, people were shouting in about ten different languages, including English. It was good to get out of there, and our last tip had told us what to do.

We had jeeps waiting outside the airport for us. One of us would drive, and the other would navigate. "Want me to drive?" I offered.

Sky shrugged. "Okay. I don't mind navigating."

We overtook the Best Friends on the way, but were just close enough to hear Devin letting out a jungle cry and Carrie giggling.

"That's taking a long time to take off." I muttered.

"What are you talking about?" Sky asked. "You've only been driving for like five minutes."

"Oh, I mean..." I began, stammering. I'd promised Carrie not to say anything, so I had to make up some dumb excuse. I don't think Sky bought it, but she didn't press me. Yeah, keeping secrets wasn't always that easy. My way of matchmaking was telling people, not keeping quiet.

A few teams had already gone by the time we reached the falls, but Sky had the fifth tip in her hand soon enough.

"Check the glove box!" she called to me. "There's a camera in there!"

I brought out the camera, and she told me about the rest of the tip. "Selfie Safari. We have to take a lifeboat down the falls and take a selfie, then we go to Zambezi National Park. There, we have to find and take a picture with a white rhino. Then we can go to the Chill Zone."

We got the first selfie done fine, but there was a little issue. See, I was holding the camera, and I know we were both in the shot, but by the time we'd finished falling, I was in the boat and Sky had disappeared. Well, okay. I'd just have to hope she'd turn up. The nearest help was Don, so my only thing was to go straight to the Chill Zone, tell Don Sky was missing and then go back to the river and do the challenge.

As it was, I was stuck drifting down the river – I couldn't go back to where the falls were. Then, my boat hit another, and the occupier turned, saying "I knew you were going to catch u – oh, hi."

It was Junior. And he was alone, too.

"Hey." I greeted the kid. "What happened to your dad?"

"We got separated." Junior explained. "And the family rule is that if you get separated, go to your destination. "Mind if I tag along?"

I shrugged. "Why not? I can't find my partner, either. I figured I'd go to the Chill Zone so Don can send out people to help me look for her, then we'll go back to do the challenge."

As it was, I didn't have to do that. Just as I was pulling the boat onto land, Sky suddenly emerged from the water, soaked and annoyed. "Couldn't you have waited for me?" she snapped as she pulled herself up.

"The current wasn't exactly giving me a choice!" I snapped back. "Were you swimming just behind me this whole time? Why didn't you tell me you were there?"

"Because I only just caught up!" Sky explained hotly. "What were you going to do?"

"Find Don and get help to find you!" I shot back at her. "What else were you expecting me to do?"

Sky softened a tiny bit at this. "Oh...well...I guess we should start the challenge, then."

"Yeah, we should." I agreed. "Junior, do you want to come with us?"

"Nah, it's okay." Junior said, smiling. "I can look after myself. And I better try and find my dad, anyway."

"Okay, see you after the challenge, then." I shrugged, and then we left.

Finding the white rhino wasn't really that hard. But neither of us really wanted to get near enough to touch it. In the end, I offered myself up for sacrifice, and put my arm as far as it would go around the rhino's neck. Then I ran like crazy the minute Sky had taken the picture.

Even with that, we still didn't finish in a great place. We ended up in 9th place. NINTH! Seriously. We had lost a lot of time losing each other and then inching close enough to the rhino.

As for who came last, though?

Dwayne and Junior. Another non-elimination round got them through, though. Lucky. And apparently, Junior had met up with the Best Friends and even finished the challenge.

The Ice Dancers actually didn't win this league again, losing to the Police Cadets, but they made it into second place again. Although they were back in the top three, they were still looking worried.

That's why I suggested to Sky that while restaurants weren't plentiful, we should also go down to the nearby Mana Pools National Park. I found out about it from Don, and I figured we could take a break from the competition, so a bunch of us went down. Sky actually came with the group for once, and seemed to relax a bit.

MacArthur especially liked the park. I think that was partly because of the aggressive look of the hippos – I swear she had the idea of wrestling one if not for Sanders reminding her that the hippos had lethal teeth.

I liked the elephants better. I knew African elephants were usually more aggressive than Asian elephants, and these were bigger and yet, they seemed cute with their dark eyes and trunks, a few of them picking up water with them and then shooting it at the younger ones.

There were also supposed to be crocodiles and lions, but we didn't see any. A good thing, too – I doubted anyone other than our team knew how to scare off lions, and apart from zigzagging, there wasn't much to deter a crocodile. I knew for a fact that these were Nile crocodiles, the second biggest in the world, and unlike alligators, crocodiles would kill whether they felt threatened or not.

I was pretty glad to crawl into my tent and fall asleep that night, though. African safaris could be fun, but they were pretty exhausting, too!

 **It was pretty hard to get out this chapter. Hope you liked the changes I made. Luckily, we're nearly at the half-way mark, and I am pretty knowledgeable about a few places down the line!**


	14. Chapter 14

**Okay, we're off to Australia. Geelong Prison is about an hour away from Melbourne, which is where the flight goes. But I've been to Melbourne Airport loads of times (long lines at Customs, confusing bag drop areas, HUGE food courts with a place that sells heavenly strawberry tarts...) and I know my way around the town. It's got great things. My brother and sister live there (although my sister's living in NY for a few months, but her fiance's still there in the meantime) so I go over there a lot.**

 **Thanks for reviewing, Nicky Haugh, The Phenomenal Flair, Lord of the Sloths and SuperKitty4789.**

Even though I'd felt so tired at night in Zimbabwe, I felt full of energy when it was time to get up and go. Sanders pulled out the first tip. "We're going to Australia! Yes!"

We all had to get taxis and book a flight to Melbourne. This time, we were all on the same flight. There was just one difference to know of.

That was the Ice Dancers. When they first jumped onto the shuttle for the airport, it looked as if they'd dyed their clothes. Instead of the purple and pink we were all used to, they'd switched it all up for black and red. Their outfits were exactly the same, apart from the colours, but still...

"Know anything about Australia?" I asked Sky in an innocent tone.

"Are you kidding?" Sky laughed. "I think the only stuff I know are things I heard from Jasmine last season. Oh, and kangaroos and koalas. That's about it."

I paused, thinking. "There's a lot of wildlife in Australia. Snakes and stuff. I think there's a kind of wild dog breed, sort of like coyotes or wolves, but something different. And there are these weird little mammals with flippers somewhere, sort of like penguins with bills but still mammals, but I doubt we'll see any of those. And crocodiles. And I heard somewhere there's tons of wild parakeets and stuff, but keeping it real, we just did a safari challenge. It'll probably be something else that's just in Melbourne."

"That's not the capital, though." Sky said thoughtfully. "Know anything about the state?"

I paused, thinking. "Nope." I said finally. "I _think_ Melbourne itself might be a city, but that's about it."

"Attention, teams!" We looked up, hearing Don's voice from the speakers. The screen had the show symbol on it. "This is a Boomerang!" A red boomerang showed up on screen as he spoke. "Find one attached to your tip and you can use it to send another team back to repeat the last challenge!"

The Ice Dancers were sitting right behind us, so I clearly heard Josee's exclamation of "I want one!"

"So if we get a boomerang, what should we do with it?" I asked Sky.

She thought about it, and then said "Well, if we weren't in danger of being eliminated, I'd rather not use it. But if we only had, say, two or three teams behind us, I'd send back the one closest to us."  
"I just hope no one uses the boomerang on us." I added. But then I thought about it. "Well, it's a good thing we get along with most of the teams, I guess. That _might_ make us a lesser target, unless everyone in this game is as focused as we are." I finished, grinning at Sky.

She managed a small smile back. It wasn't much, but it was genuine.

The Don Box at Melbourne Airport didn't give us a boomerang, but it did tell us where to go.

"Geelong Maximum Security Prison." Sky told me. "It's not operational any more. I guess it's paying homage to the punishment for British criminals."

I paused, thinking. "Exile, right?"

Sky nodded. "Most of them died on the way here. Those that didn't still had a terrible time."

I remembered the musical about Sweeney Todd, the barber. He'd been one of those many exiles – he'd changed identities sometime between his sentence and returning to London, and the amount he'd changed...well, Sky had to be right.

I spotted a note in smaller font on the tip that made me feel better, though. "Hey, did you read this bit? Winner of this leg gets to make a phone call home!"

Sky was just waving down a taxi, but that got her attention. "Really? Who were you planning to call?"

I shrugged. "I guess one of my friends. Who would you call? Dave?"

"Maybe." Sky said. "Either him, or my sister. She lives in New York now, and it's been a while since I last spoke to her on the phone."

The taxi took a long time driving from Melbourne Airport, past the city and to Geelong, but at least there were some cool sights in the city.

"Hungry Jacks...isn't that just Burger King?" I wondered, staring out at the glowing sign.

"I have never seen so many people crowded around a pyramid." Sky murmured, staring at the town square.

I spotted a shop display at the same time. "Did you see that shop Dangerfield? I am going to have to drag the Fashion Bloggers here after this challenge and make them help me choose clothes from there. That dress with the lacy collar belongs to me!"

Sky looked amused. "Never had you down for the type that's into vintage style." she remarked.

I shrugged. "You're looking at the girl who had an alliance with Ella. She's so into girly stuff that it kind of rubbed off on me. Difference is that she's into fairy tale clothes and I'm into more unusual stuff. If she's a princess, I'm a demon!" I jokingly pretended to snarl at Sky, and she laughed.

 _Progress!_ My head screamed, and I couldn't help smiling at the thought. The Frenemy Athletes were becoming less like enemies and more like friends every second!

The minute we arrived at the prison, two guards escorted us to a cell. Well, it had been on the tip, so we were expecting it. All the same, I had to make a quip. "Friends will bail you out of jail. Best friends will be in the same cell saying 'That was awesome! Let's do it again!'" I grinned.

Sky smiled the tiniest amount, and then said "Okay, we have to find a way out." According to the tip, we either needed to find a tunnel, a trapdoor, hidden tools, or loose bars. While Sky started tapping on the floor tiles and checking for trapdoors or tunnels, I tested the bars and, when I had no luck, started to tear apart the bunk bed mattresses.

Funny thing – I was the one looking for tools, but Sky actually found them underneath a loose tile. Then, all we had to do was use it to bash the bars enough to create an opening that let both of us slip through. It was lucky that neither of us were the size of Owen or Ryan (the latter being worse as all of that matter was muscle so he couldn't even suck in his stomach like Owen could) or even MacArthur, who was sort of plump (even if it was all gluteus maximus as she claimed).

We passed quite a few cells on our way out. In the Police Cadets' one, MacArthur was tearing the bedding apart and throwing things around while Sanders was at the window, trying to loosen the bars as I had done. I'm not sure MacArthur was looking for tools, though, judging by the look of fury on her face. Meanwhile, the Sisters were pounding on the walls of their cell, obviously trying to find a hollow space.

We arrived at the next Don Box, just by a river, just before the Ice Dancers. Our job was to build a raft, so as we collected our wood and started creating, we got an earful of Cadets and Skater rivalry.

Yeah, guess what? Both teams got boomerangs, and within two minutes, Sanders and Josee were pointing them at each other, threatening to use them on each other.

And what happened? Yeah, they did it.

"Well, at least it's going to make sure we don't go home this time." I muttered to Sky.

"But if we don't work fast, there's no hope of us getting the phone call home." she muttered back.

We actually passed three teams on our raft, which helped us to finish in an...er...decent sixth place. It was annoying, though, because we had to watch Devin frantically dialing on a phone while Carrie was trying to tell him something (probably the big confession, I suspected).

Carrie didn't manage to finish telling him, though. Don told him that he could keep trying to call, but only until the last team had arrived.

Luckily, neither the Police Cadets or the Ice Dancers arrived before Devin finally got through to someone. "Shelley? Oh, thanks, Ashton."

"Isn't Shelley his girlfriend?" I whispered to Sky. "No wonder Carrie looks so depressed. What do you bet he didn't ask her who she wanted to call?"

"He might have asked her." Sky whispered back. "She probably couldn't think of a reason he couldn't."

By that time, Devin was talking on the phone again. "Shelley, hi! It's me...Devin...I miss you so much...what? No, we never broke up! You're dating _who_?...Ashton?" While Devin was still talking, I heard the dial tone. It looked like his girlfriend had hung up on him...oh wait, make that ex-girlfriend. The guy was devastated.

I pulled Carrie aside for a moment. "Were you going to tell him?" I asked.

Carrie gave a nod. "I actually got all the words out, but he didn't hear me." she explained. "And I can't tell him now, not when he's like this."

"Wise choice." I smiled sympathetically at her. "Just a warning – he's probably going to go through a lot before he's finally over her. I'd wait until he's completely moved on."

"How will I know?" Carrie asked, looking worried.

"You'll know." I reassured her. "Devin will be his old self. Just...don't try to push it. Just be there for him through it. It's likely he'll start treating the breakup as a misunderstanding at first before it completely hits him. Don't try to tell him he's wrong – just let it progress naturally. He'll be grateful for it later. If you ask Kitty, I'm sure she'd say the same thing. Although maybe she'd have more advice than me – she's the love expert, after all."

Carrie managed a small smile. "Thanks, Julie." she said, giving me a quick, unexpected hug.

Oh yeah, and it was a non-elimination round. The Police Cadets arrived seconds after the Ice Dancers, but I could see the two teams shooting dark looks at each other.

And I was getting worried. I knew how competitive the Ice Dancers were. But...well, I needed to stay on their good side, so I approached them. "Hey, guys." I said, smiling nervously. "I know it's been a hard day, but I was wondering if you guys wanted to come into Melbourne's inner city with me and we could have dinner? I'll pay. First place doesn't come without some time to relax."

Josee looked at me suspiciously, but I kept on smiling, looking from her to Jacques. He looked as if he wanted to say yes, but waited.

"All right." Josee said finally. "As long as we choose the place."

I shrugged. I was in the mood for something spicy, but I could make sacrifices. I asked Sky if she wanted to come, but she declined. "I don't think I'm up for hanging out with them right now – they're not in a good mood." she admitted to me. "Maybe I'll go with some of the others later."

I nodded. "All right. Just...listen, if the Cadets see me going off with those two, can you please tell them I'm just trying to make sure I'm in good with everyone and I don't hate them?"

So it was just me and two very moody figure skaters on Collins Street in the CBD. We ended up going to a place called Purple Peanuts, a little Japanese cafe. I ordered the chicken curry, Jacques ordered a tofu burger, and Josee ordered the salmon sashimi. It was pretty nice food, and it was quite a crowded place, so it was too loud to talk. That was fine, because I didn't know what to say to these two.

At least they seemed a little more stable after we'd had something to eat. Josee even opened up to me about their bad luck. "I'm worried the lava rock is still haunting us." she said. "Are you sure putting it back was what we were supposed to do?"

I shrugged. "I think so. You're probably just working off the last of the effects now. Trust me, you'll be in first place once we leave Australia!"

 **But will they? Let's hope so...NOT! Okay, okay. See you next chapter!**


	15. Chapter 15

**All right. Well, I guess this is the outback. New Zealand coming up...and I have nothing to say about it except that it's my home and I love it. Except that you won't be seeing much of my home city – the place they go to is in the Otago region, in the South Island, apparently near Wanaka. I live in Auckland, the "City Of Sails", which is the largest city in New Zealand, in the North Island and was even the capital for a short time in the 1800s (along with Russell and the current capital Wellington).**

 **Thanks for your reviews, Nicky Haugh, Phenomenal Styles (love the new penname!), Pokemon FTW, Lord of the Sloths and DannyPhantom619.**

The river we were staying by was a little way away from Melbourne's CBD, so I didn't get to drag the Fashion Bloggers to Dangerfield as I'd hoped. I did get to talk to them a little bit about the cute dress I'd seen, as well as another thing I'd seen in the window – a brown pinafore.

"Pinafores are cute on some people," Jen said, eyeing me, "But you're too tall for them. The dress sounds more like it. Lacy collars are totally vintage."

"Which colour dress did you want?" Tom asked, looking interested.

I shrugged. "I hadn't thought that far. There was a sort of bubblegum pink with gold polkadots and a black one with white polkadots."

Neither of them looked impressed. "Neither of those are really a good look for you." Tom said decisively. "A white one with black polkadots might have worked, or a dark red one. But not black."

I gave a sigh. "Maybe there'll be something more me on their website. I'll have to look that up after I win."

Meanwhile, the more harmonious my teamship with Sky became, the more drama occurred with everyone else. Despite Carrie following my advice to be there for Devin and letting him cry all over her, if he cried much more, he'd be severely dehydrated. Don got so annoyed, that just before announcing that it was time for the next challenge, he put a paper bag with a smiley photo of Devin over the dude's head.

Oh well. There was one team getting along better than everyone else, and that was the Stepbrothers. When they'd been on the plane, they were still hurling insults at each other or not even talking, but Kitty had told me she'd been kept up by them all night, because they'd been in the tent next to the Sisters', apparently talking and laughing and playing air guitar. They'd even made up their own theme song.

They'd actually come in second last challenge, after the Best Friends, but they didn't seem to mind not getting the phone call at all.

As it was, my guess that Devin would call his break-up with Shelley a misunderstanding was correct. Carrie tried to comfort him while they were grabbing the first tip, and he turned her statement into "I mean, I bet she didn't even dump me! I probably misheard her!"

I caught Carrie's eye and gave her a reassuring look, just as the Stepbrothers stepped up. "Move already!" Chet demanded rudely. "Me and my awesome bro are up!"

As we discovered when we got our tip, it was an All-In. "Bunny Bagging." Sky read to me. "There's a farm a little way away - " she waved her hand, where, not too far away, huge pastures lay, "And we have to collect ten rabbits on there. They're supposed to be pests on most farms in Victoria...across the whole country, really. And apparently there's one albino bunny. If we get that, we can skip the rest of the challenge."

Well, what can I say? The challenge was actually really easy, compared to breaking out of jail or taking selfies on safari. Rabbits are fast, but when you're as fast as I am or as agile yet quiet as Sky, it actually wasn't so hard to sneak up on them.

The Surfer Dudes apparently caught ten before us, because I heard Geoff declaring "We got ten rabbits!" around the time we only had eight. But that was okay. We didn't need a prize yet, and there was probably more to the challenge where we could catch up.

We were also outdone by the Goths. About two minutes after Ennui had stepped onto the paddock, about seven rabbits were clinging to him, looking absolutely blissful. "Um, Crimson, it's happening again." he said, looking extremely uncomfortable.

"Don't animals feel vibes?" I whispered to Sky. "Like, they know if someone is cool with them or not? I thought those two hated everything cute and fluffy. Crimson almost definitely does."

Sky shrugged, pulling up our ninth rabbit, a little pale brown thing. "Maybe Ennui really likes animals, deep down. And it's not like he's an evil person, so they don't have any reason to hate them."

"Well, I remember in World Tour, pretty much all animals seemed to love Alejandro," I pointed out, "So it's probably more that Ennui's good with them, not that he's a good person. Though neither of them are villain material. Maybe it's just people he's not good with and animals are fine."

Finally, I hoisted one last little grey rabbit up by the ears and put him into our sack. The farmer gave us our next tip, and this time, I read it. "We have to take a glider and fly to...wow, New Zealand. The Chill Zone is at the foot of Mount Aspiring in Wanaka."

It took almost five hours to fly. I went as far as the North Island, then we took a moment to touch down and swap, and then Sky flew the rest of the way.

As we glided, we discussed what we knew about New Zealand. It was so little. "I remember when I first met Jasmine," I said, "I thought she might be from New Zealand. I mean, I guessed she might be Australian too, but I wasn't sure which."

Sky took a second to think about it, then said "Is New Zealand as exotic as Australia? I read somewhere that they have this really famous lizard. And there was some island that had something Australian on it."

This stirred a faint memory. "Was it wallabies, or wombats, or something?" I asked. "I remember hearing about an island with those, but I don't remember the name."

"Wallabies!" Sky exclaimed. "That was it!" She paused for a moment. "Hey, look!" She pointed down. There weren't many clouds, and we could see New Zealand below. There were beaches almost everywhere (but not many people around, since it was winter) and the landscape looked so different from Australia. When we'd first left, we'd seen mostly yellow, brown and red in the landscapes. Apart from the beaches, New Zealand was mostly green. We did pass over a city with a skyscraper at one point ("Is someone jumping off the top?" I'd said. "I wish we were staying here and that was our challenge!"), presumably Auckland, but apart from that, it was mostly green pastures, on the North Island at least. Mount Aspiring was in the South Island, which was more snowy mountains and deep gorges with rivers.

We were actually pretty good with timing, this time. We landed about 500 metres away from the Chill Zone. "Fourth!" Don said as we reached him. We could work with that placing this time.

Three teams were standing by. One was the Goths. No shock, except that Ennui was holding a rabbit.

"New friend?" I asked, out of interest. Ennui's expression was as blank as ever, but the way he was holding the rabbit carefully, like it was more precious than any pet to its owner, spoke volumes.

"This is Loki." he explained. "He's part of our team now."

"We named him after the god of chaos." Crimson added.

I grinned. "Oh, I get it. Rabbits cause famine in Australia as pests." I grinned. "Welcome to the competition, Loki." The rabbit chattered, sounding a little bit cold, but I liked him. He was just as goth as either of his teammates.

Father and Son were also done before us. That surprised me a bit. They hadn't struck me as a particularly strong team, and I couldn't imagine Dwayne being quiet enough to sneak up on the rabbit, and I couldn't imagine Junior could have picked up the slack that much. Maybe they'd had better winds to get to NZ.

As for the first place winners this time? The Ice Dancers (who were back in pink and purple). Their smiles were genuine, and I grinned at both of them. Not that I wanted them to win again, but at least they'd stop thinking I'd been wrong about how to break their curse.

For the first time since Finland, it was an elimination round. And this time?

The Stepbrothers. I'd overheard them in Australia. They'd confused a kangaroo for a rabbit, and...well... kangaroos can box. And they kick threats. This one had followed them all the way here on their glider, and we had to actually send it back to Australia while the Stepbrothers made their final confessional about how they didn't lose and they hated the show and were going to make their own show. But they seemed happy enough as they walked off, talking about how they were going to cream each other at some video game.

We were setting up camp near a little town called Wanaka, and it was so cold that everyone wanted to have a hot dinner, so pretty much all of us walked into town and split off to find different places to eat. Sky and I ended up at Jack Rabbit, this time with just Dwayne and Junior. It was more of a coincidence, but we ended up getting a table together and the food was good. Sky and I both ordered salads (mine was a chicken salad and Sky wanted one that was completely vegetarian), although I also ordered a side of onion rings. Junior ordered pizza, and Dwayne went for ribs. That made me feel a bit jealous. I'd specifically chosen salad to stay in shape and just had a hot side, but those ribs looked so tender, and pizza was always a winner. Oh well, I could've chosen those too.

The team was good company, although we didn't really have that much to say to each other. Dwayne didn't embarrass Junior, from what I could tell, so it looked like that relationship had improved. Junior seemed a little more relaxed and not worried about it, which was also nice. I don't remember what we ended up talking about, probably because I kept trying to think of whatever I was going to say next.

The best part of the day came that night. It was after dark, and everyone had already gone to their tents. Then, abruptly, Sky spoke. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm starting to feel nervous. I mean, we're halfway through this competition now. It's been more episodes than we had on the island. Do you feel that way?"

I thought about it. "There's been so much travelling," I said finally, "That I haven't thought about it. I've been too focused on trying to keep a good social position and a safe competition placing. In a way, it's good that we haven't won any legs get. It means we won't be a huge threat to those who do cheat."

"And I think I might know who the cheaters are." Sky said, her voice quiet. "Do you know?"

I shrugged, even though I was in my sleeping bag and she couldn't see it. "I don't know. I guess the Ice Dancers, but I haven't seen them actually cheating. If not for Sanders, I'd think MacArthur would be all up for cheating, but I doubt it'll happen."

"I did mean the Ice Dancers." Sky explained. "I saw what they were doing in Australia. Josee was powdering this one grey rabbit – I think they were trying to make it a fake albino. I don't know what they did with it, but that's probably what they were going to do. And I didn't see them catch one rabbit, although they must've had one to give up, but they somehow made it here quicker than anyone else."

I thought about it. "And I heard the Surfer Dudes mentioning ten rabbits before we'd caught ten, yet they were in the bottom three." I added, thinking about it. "So there's got to be some reason for that."

"Anyway, I was thinking there," Sky said, "That I'd never seen someone cheat that way. And I started to wonder, if you 'cheated', would you have done something like the fake albino if you didn't like someone? I know what you did to Sugar, but-"

"That was to protect Ella." I finished, knowing that was what she was going to say. "I'm betting the fake albino was to attract the Police Cadets' attention. I never vote because I don't like someone unless they're bullies, like Amy and Sugar. It's the reason I didn't like Taylor, either. If voting was in this and we were all individuals, I might actually vote _you_ off because you're a threat. That's how I vote. Threats. Like when I voted off Jasmine last season – she was a major threat."

Sky smiled. "I guess that's a compliment. And I started to think I'd been a little too hard on you last season. I still don't think you deserved to win, but I know now that you're capable of playing fair for more than two weeks. And I'm actually starting to enjoy this race more, even though I'm feeling more anxious about it."

I was touched. "Thanks." I whispered. "That means a lot."

And then, we both slept soundly, and only woke up with two hours to spare.

 **Wanaka is very close to Queenstown, so I might just go to a certain cute little town nearby in the next chapter after the challenge. But, like Julie, how I wish it had been skydiving off the Skytower as "jump down" and doing the haka in front of the tourists there for "jump around". Or it would have been cool to do the challenge in a marae (a Maori house of worship). As it is, Julie may or may not get a glimpse of a mysterious legendary Maori monster next chapter...**


	16. Chapter 16

**Okay. Let's get dancing (and shouting a war chant "Ka mate, ka mate.." etc), or bungying, or whatever the Frenemy Athletes choose.**

 **Thanks for reviewing, Phenomenal Styles, Nicky Haugh, DannyPhantom619, Pokemon FTW and Lord of the Sloths.**

We were glad to get the fourth tip. "Go-go on the loco." I read out to Sky. "Okay, there's a train at a station up that hill over there, and we need to try and make the first one. They go every half-hour."

We actually made it. There was some advantage to being athletes, including beating Father and Son and the Goths to the train. The Ice Dancers and Goths both made it to the same train, but we at least made it. Father and Son were just a few seconds too late. The Ice Dancers even waved at them mockingly. I, meanwhile, sent them a sympathetic look.

"I wonder how Devin's getting on at the moment." I said to Sky, suddenly thinking of the heartbroken friendzoner. "Last time I saw him, he'd been convincing himself that Shelley didn't really break up with him and it was a misunderstanding."

Sky shrugged. "If he's not still feeling that way, he'll probably have hit angry mode. Once he accepts they're broken up, he'll probably be angry, then try to find a way to fix it, then get depressed before he accepts it."

"How do you know all that?" I asked.

Sky looked forlorn. "Keith's best friend tried to guilt me into taking him back by telling me in detail exactly how much pain he was going through. I mean, it's been a month since he stopped, and I'd been feeling really guilty about it for a while. But when I last saw Keith in school, he actually seemed like he was over everything. He even said hi to me. It was awkward, but he seemed to have accepted it. And I was learning about grief in my psychology class. It has all the same stages. Once Devin reaches a point where he seems back to normal, he'll probably have gone through every stage."

"So I guess I gave Carrie the right advice." I mused. "He'll need someone to be there for him while he gets over Shelley. Maybe I should tell her – or do you think she'll try to manipulate him past each stage?"

"I could hear part of what Shelley was saying on the phone to Devin, and she sounded pretty heartless." Sky told me. "I doubt he'll be heartbroken for as long as most people, when he realizes what kind of person she really was. He might be in the angry stage for longer when it hits, but that also means he'll probably spend less time bargaining or feeling depressed about it. I don't _think_ Carrie's the manipulative type. If you tell her straight that it's best for Devin to get through each stage naturally, she'll probably just wait."

The train ride wasn't that long, so we spent the rest of it just checking through magazines that had been left on the train for more information on New Zealand. I even found a copy of a mag called _Girlfriend,_ which had a fun problem page to look at, but not much else. Sky showed me an article from a nature magazine about the kakapo, the world's only flightless parrot. They all lived in a sanctuary somewhere in the South Island, because they were so endangered.

"So there's more than one native bird, I guess." Sky said as she skimmed the article. "This also mentions this other flightless bird called the moa, and that's extinct, because the ancient tribes used to catch and cook them all the time. Like the dodo. That's probably how the kakapo got so endangered, because they can't fly."

"Or the pests got them." I suggested. "Cats, stoats, weasels...it's a parrot, so it's not really big enough to cook."

Just as we were discussing the kakapo, the train juddered to a stop. We were last to get the tip. I read it out. "Either-Or: Jump Down or Jump Around. We can bungy jump off a bridge to get this whiskery fish, or perform a native Maori war dance and chant called the haka."

Sky grinned. "Jump Down?"

I smiled back. "Definitely."

Both of us wanted to bungy first, but we eventually decided on alphabetical order, so I got to go first. I didn't get the fish, but I certainly saw several of them. And...well...I can't say I know what I saw there, because I didn't, but the creature in the distance looked sort of like a dragon. It was long and its fins sort of flowed, and its face looked sort of...I don't know. Its beady eyes should have been menacing, but there was something gentle and beautiful about it.

When I got back on the platform, I helped Sky buckle the bungy cord around her feet. "Hope you get the fish!" I said cheerfully. "And...uh...if you see what looks like a dragon, tell me when you get back, okay?"

We weren't the only ones on the platform, by the way. The Goths had already taken one turn each by the time we got there, and were still waiting for a second turn. Sadly, Sky didn't get a fish and we had to let them go. By the time they were done, the Police Cadets had also arrived and just as Crimson was about to pass the bungy cord to me, Sanders took it with a not-too-polite "Thank you!"

"Excuse me, am I hearing the good cop sound not so good there?" I said with a sarcastic smirk. MacArthur burst out laughing.

Sanders just grinned. "Whatever. You snooze, you lose."

"All right, just give it back once you've had your go." I sighed. Then I turned to Sky. "I take it you didn't see any dragon-like creature?" I whispered to her.

"Not exactly..." Sky said, "But I saw something like this legend creature I saw in one of the Maori magazines on the train, and that looks like a dragon. It's like a protector of the Maori, like the gods they have in their church places...you know, those little wooden houses where you're not allowed to wear shoes? It's called a taniwha, and I'm still not convinced that's what it was. Maybe it was just a kind of eel, because taniwha aren't supposed to be real."

I thought about that. "You know, both theories make sense. I thought it looked like a dragon, and it had eel-like eyes, but still. I can't help thinking...well, maybe it _could_ have been a taniwha."

No matter what it was, neither of us saw it on our next turn, or our next, and no one else mentioned seeing it afterwards, so I don't know what we saw. Sky managed to get our fish, but only after the Goths and Police Cadets had finished.

We ended up in fifth place. The Ice Dancers had apparently done Jump Around (no wonder), and the Best Friends had done it too, ending up in second place. The Police Cadets and the Goths both beat us, too. We'd left the Sisters, Surfer Dudes and Reality TV Pros behind, and so far, there was no sign of Father and Son or the Fashion Bloggers, so I guessed they'd done Jump Around.

I sidled up to Carrie. "How's Devin?" I whispered.

"A bit scary." she whispered back. "I didn't say anything, I swear, but he suddenly just stopped denying the break-up, and now he's furious about it. Ever since the train ride, he's been mad about pretty much everything. I don't know what to do."

"You don't have to do anything." I told her. "This is normal. Sky's boyfriend was the same when she dumped him. Can I just ask – what kind of person was Shelley?"

Carrie paused. "Well, Devin was saying in Iceland that he was reminded of the time he nearly got frostbite, because she locked him out of the car because he bought her the wrong kind of tea, so..."

I gave a gasp. "And he _stayed_ with her? Okay, I needed to know that. Sky thinks Devin will be in the Angry stage for longer than most people, because of the way she treated him. But there's also good news – he has another couple of stages to go through once he's finished being angry, and they shouldn't last as long because he'll realize a lot quicker that he was better off without her. Don't push them – it'll be better for him to just go through it naturally"

Carrie's face lit up. "That _is_ good news! Thanks, Julie!"

I also remembered to congratulate the Ice Dancers for their second win in a row. They were in a good mood by now, but didn't seem too interested in talking. Too busy basking in their win, I supposed. When we first turned up, Josee had called to us, declaring "We were wondering when you'd arrive. We'd been waiting for _hours._ "

After I congratulated them, I went to the confessional to vent. Sky came with me. "I really want to make sure they don't do anything to me, but they're really getting annoying." I complained. "I know winning is important to them, but do they have to gloat about it? If they keep doing it, I might end up snapping like Scarlett did. Or, at least, reminding them that they would constantly be finishing fourth if I hadn't told them about the lava rock."

"Except that would only give them a reason to target us." Sky reminded me more calmly. "I don't like them either, but my original plan in this game was to keep it professional – not to get too close to our competition, but not to make any enemies either. I keep thinking how last season might have gone wrong if Dave had stayed longer – I might have hurt him without meaning to because I liked him so much..."

After our confessional, away from the cameras, I asked her about what she'd meant by hurting Dave. "Are you talking about the finale, when he found out you had a boyfriend?" I asked her.

"There's more to it than that." Sky said softly. "I liked Dave, you could see that. Remember when Ella said he was into me and I couldn't stop smiling? Dave told me later on that every time I showed that I might like him, he took it seriously, but then there were times I seemed distant, and he didn't understand why. I was sending all these mixed messages, and he didn't know what to make of them, but he was willing to ignore the negative ones because he wanted to believe the positive ones. When he first told me he liked me, I managed to tell him I liked him back, but he wouldn't listen to what else I wanted to say – he said he didn't want to hear it."

I frowned. "Dave wasn't listening to you? Why would you still like him?"

"What I said was 'I like you too, but,'" Sky explained. "Dave was probably scared that I was going to give him a reason for him not to go after me, even though we liked each other. All I was going to tell him was that I didn't want to get into a relationship during the game, and that I had something to take care of at home before I could start a relationship."

"You weren't going to tell him about Keith?" I said incredulously. "You were going to just...skirt around it?"

"I would have told him after I'd broken up with Keith." Sky said, although her cheeks went pink. "My point is, if Dave had stayed on the show longer, I might have messed up my relationship with him for good by snapping and telling him to leave me alone."

We didn't talk for too much longer, because the last few teams showed up. Last were the Reality TV Pros, just inches behind the Sisters.

Noah didn't look too happy. "I don't know what dictionary you're using, but it's definition of 'alliance' is way off." he told the two girls.

Emma looked really unhappy. "I'm sorry, Noah." she said. "This was what I was afraid of! I like you, a lot, but I can't be with you. Not on this show." She and Kitty walked away, and Noah's mouth dropped open. He didn't talk or react to anything for the rest of the day.

It was a non-elimination round, so the two reality TV veterans were still in the game. But if Noah's frozen look was any indication, they wouldn't last very long.

 **Julie will talk to Kitty to get more background next chapter.**

 **Since we're past the halfway point now, I have a few questions for you reviewers:**

 **How far do you think the Frenemy Athletes will get?**

 **Any ideas what will be the final act of Julie's to get Sky's respect back? I have plans for it.**

 **Any guesses which upcoming location Julie will be most excited to visit? Hint: Heritage.**

 **The Fashion Bloggers have been around much longer than they were in canon. Where do YOU think they'll leave the game?**


	17. Chapter 17

**Okay. I guess we're going back to Canada for a little while. I've actually never been there. Believe it or not, Total Drama is the biggest link between myself and Canada!**

 **Okay, I need to clear this up, because I'm not sure I made it clear last chapter. When I hinted about a legendary Maori monster, I was referring to the taniwha Sky and Julie both saw. There is no proof that it exists and I'm pretty sure it doesn't, but I wanted to put a little more culture into this story, which is my only reason for it being there – it wasn't meant to affect anything. I also once started writing a story about an eighteenth-century Maori slave-girl who a taniwha fell in love with and kidnapped on her thirteenth birthday. It was never finished – the girl was just allowed to go and hunt, but all she caught was a kiwi (and they don't taste good – I checked online and it said that Maori wouldn't have eaten kiwi).**

 **Another note, due to something misunderstood by a reviewer: Remember that Dave and Sky are a couple in this universe. Dave was voted off sixth and it softened the blow of Sky's boyfriend since she put off their relationship until after the competition. This helped her to get to a point where, while she still ended up hurting him, it wasn't as badly as she hurt him in the show and they were able to salvage their relationship and are now dating.**

 **Thanks for reviewing, TheProtecterOfHim, Lord of the Sloths, Nicky Haugh, StarHeart Specials, Phenomenal Styles and Pokemon FTW.**

I didn't want to go into town that evening, even though hot food would've been good. As it was, as a reward for making it through half the competition, Don produced thermos of hot chocolate. Only one between the two of us on each team (apart from the first place Ice Dancers who got one each), but it was still real hot chocolate, and it tasted like heaven alongside our boring sandwiches/rolls and apples/bananas/pears/oranges/grapes.

After we'd eaten, I asked Kitty what had happened between her team and the Pros. "Emma was getting really unfocused." she admitted. "And she was even referring to a wedding and having kids – I had to tell her to concentrate on the game which was a real turnaround, because usually she's telling me to concentrate. It almost cost us the challenge, and Emma knows that. That's why she's dumped Noah. I don't think she meant it like a forever thing, but that's how he's taken it."

"Are you going to tell him that?" I asked.

Kitty shook her head. "I think Emma has to tell him. I'll talk to her about it. I should probably tell Owen, though – Noah might respond to him."

"Okay." I said, not knowing what to say next. "If Emma doesn't listen, you should remind her that if Noah stays catatonic, they'll almost certainly get eliminated next. That might spur her into action."

Kitty nodded, but she also had a little amused look. "Like spurring on the Fashion Bloggers by insulting their taste, right?"

I blushed, knowing she was referring to my stunt in Transylvania when I helped the Fashion Bloggers beat the Daters to the Chill Zone. "Um, that wasn't cheating or anything! I mean, they didn't deserve to go and Stephanie's treatment of Ryan was-"

"I'm not mad about it." Kitty interrupted, chuckling. "I get why you did it. Don't forget, I know a dysfunctional relationship just like how I know when love is in the air, and I can tell, you probably stopped the Daters from no longer being Daters."

However, the next morning, Noah was no better, still not responding to a thing. They weren't the only ones having problems, though. Dwayne had somehow gotten the idea in his head that Junior would like him better if he was cool, and got a Maori tattoo on his tattoo. The problem was, everyone else knew it was actually a woman's tattoo, even Junior (he'd bought a magazine about it). I even saw them while we were trying to grab a taxi. We caught one, but they would have gotten it except that the man in the taxi took one look at Dwayne's tat, burst out laughing, and decided not to pick him up.

Oh yeah, taxi. This time, we were headed to Alberta, to a dude ranch at Head Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. Don't ask about the name.

I didn't need to discuss Alberta trivia with Sky. We knew our home country, and we'd both visited dude ranches when we were kids, so we had some memories of what it would be like. Naturally, we expected a mechanical bull ride or a lasso contest, like a rodeo or something.

So while we were on the flight (the first flight out – the Sisters, Reality TV Pros and Father and Son ended up on the second one), we watched the in-flight entertainment. And Sky found something of interest on her entertainment system.

"Go to TV, Canadian shows." she said, her voice brisk. Something in it made me not bother to question her. And there it was. A promo with fifteen smiling teens staring out at me. Faces that I mostly hadn't seen for months.

Well, okay, I told a lie, not everyone was smiling. I was, and Sky was. But Amy, sitting on her knees mirroring Sammy, had a scowl on her face. Max was frowning for all he was worth, and Shawn looked more nervous than anything. But I knew the promotional picture for Total Drama Pahkitew Island when I saw it.

"Have you watched it since the season aired?" Sky asked. "Like, online?"

I shrugged. "Nope. But we've got time to kill, I guess. We could watch it together."

So that's what we did. We couldn't help giggling at some of the funny parts together (I laughed a lot when Beardo was driving Dave crazy with his sound effects). But when it got to the bit where I used a conversation with Ella to convince Team Kinosewak to toss Topher, Sky turned to me, her face set.

"You know about that part, remember?" I hissed. "If we're going to watch this, it's the past. You can't yell at me for something you've already yelled at me for."

Sky didn't give me any more disapproving glances, just as I'd asked. Even when I told Sugar off for being mean to Ella, she looked at me, but not disapprovingly. Considering how angry her screen-self was, she seemed to understand as she heard herself ranting about unsportsmanlike conduct.

There was actually a confessional from Sky I hadn't heard, where she said she didn't usually trash-talk, but she'd been angry enough to do that to Scarlett after Max electrocuted Ella (it was shown in full there that it was all Scarlett's idea, anyway, and that she'd ducked when Sky went for her, knowing that she would swing too hard and fall into the water if she didn't hit her target).

When we got to Episode 12, the part when Sky really tore into me about listening in on confessionals and the like, both of us had our eyes glued to the scene, for most of it. I sneaked a peek at Sky halfway through, and the look on her face...it was as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

We didn't talk until we finished watching the end of the season, but afterwards, Sky spoke up. "I guess I forgot how angry I was at the time." she said shakily. "I can't imagine feeling that way now."

I couldn't help a little smirk. "Does that mean I've redeemed myself in your eyes properly?" I asked.

Sky managed a smile of her own. "Give it time. Ask me again when we win."

The flight was insanely long. I mean, we were going from the southernmost country apart from Antartica, to a northern country halfway across the globe. At least it was western Canada, which was closer to New Zealand, so it was only about fourteen hours in the end. Still, I was in no position to drive when we found the army trucks waiting for us.

Luckily, Sky took one look at me and said "I'll drive. I had a nap on the plane, and you look like the living dead."

"Thanks." I muttered. I really wasn't energized after the flight. Hopefully the challenge would wake me up.

We were right behind the first three trucks, but somehow, two of them seemed to have disappeared on the way to the ranch, because we were second in, right after the Surfer Dudes.

Our first challenge was to...eat a huge pot of pork and beans. We'd find our tip after we'd eaten it all.

"Cowboy meal challenge?" I gave a sigh. "Well, I guess we better take advantage of the fresh air before Owen arrives."

To be fair, eating isn't usually the best way to stay awake, but the adredalin of needing to eat fast woke me up enough. It wasn't exactly my favourite food, but it wasn't seventies-expired cocktail, so I could shovel the stuff into my mouth without gagging once. I don't know who ate more, me or Sky, but we both definitely ate a lot.

The Surfer Dudes had finished before us, of course, and we noticed Brody was taking on the mechanical bull.

"Botch or Watch?" I sighed. "Guess I'll be taking that thing on." I pulled the tip out of the pot, and then read it. Then I began to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Sky asked.

"It's not a Botch or Watch after all." I giggled. "It's a random Botch. I took the tip, which means you have to take on that bull. And stay on for eight seconds."

Sky just sighed and stood up. This time, as we watched, Brody took five seconds to fly off. But we also had to wait for another couple of minutes, because two more teams had finished their pots before us.

We had to watch another few seconds of Devin grimly hanging onto the bull, but still not quite making it. Carrie was watching him anxiously, which was understandable. Judging by his face and scream of frustration, he was still in the "angry" stage. "I can't believe I have to do this all over again!" he yelled as he picked himself up.

However, Crimson was next, and she barely even had to hang on, being the first to finish. Still, while Sky had to hang on a helluva lot more, she actually did complete it first time, and we left, just as the Fashion Bloggers finished their pot and were grabbing their tip (We were out the door before I could see who got the tip).

Anyway, it was time to get to the Chill Zone. The Goths may have finished first, but we could still make second place, and I know, although neither of us said it, we were both wondering if maybe we could outrun them.

As it was, when we arrived at the Chill Zone, Don greeted us with "Frenemy Athletes, congratulations, you're in first place."

Sky looked at me. I looked back at her. Then we both squealed and hugged each other.

"We've placed first!"

"I know! We've won this round!"

"This is so awesome!"

We only snapped out of our joy when the Surfer Dudes arrived, claiming second place. The Best Friends arrived third, although Devin looked less angry now.

"How is he?" I asked Carrie.

"He apologized for being so aggressive on the way here." Carrie said softly. "I think that's a good sign."

I nodded, although I knew that he might still be in the angry stage. "You're doing great with him so far. I'm sure he'll be over it soon."

The Goths arrived fourth. Apparently they'd been distracted by some skull. And then, one by one, the other teams arrived. Soon, only the Reality TV Pros and Father and Son hadn't arrived. Damn it! I was hoping the Ice Dancers would get it, but they seemed to be in a better mood today, since neither of them were glowering and nor did they have a reason to gloat.

Eventually, Noah and Owen arrived. But Noah still had that frozen expression. But Emma seemed to have made her decision. "Noah, I'm so sorry I broke you." she said, running over. "I didn't mean to. I still really like you and I want us to be together."

I watched the scene in interest. Would this bring Noah back to life. He took a big shuddering gasp and said "You...you do?"

"Yes!" Emma confirmed. "I just – I can't do the romance thing until the race is over. But after I win, you and I are so on."

Noah broke into a grin. "Great! So when one of us wins-"

Emma scowled. "Are you not listening? When MY team wins!"

I made an on-set confessional. "Wait, so Emma isn't going to date Noah unless she and Kitty win? That's kind of...harsh. Now I'm starting to feel lucky that I'm only looking to have people I like and not for someone to date." I let out a giggle. "Although during that Total Drama reunion party, I got around every hot guy there was."

(Yeah, there was a reunion party before the Ridonculous Race hosted by Sierra, and I'd spoken to everyone I could, including a secret crush of mine from the first season – I'd even tried to get around all the finalists, even the ones I didn't like -in fact, the girl from Revenge Of The Island, a cheerleader who knew the twins from my season, sought me out because we were both athletes, and me and a bunch of the others had a swim contest which Sky won).

Dwayne and Junior were out of the race. Don was about to say he was happy to tell them something beforehand, but when Dwayne assumed he was going to say it was a non-elimination round, Don said it wasn't, and he couldn't remember what he was going to say.

Dwayne looked really downcast. I started to feel sorry for him, but he brightened up when Junior hugged him. "Thanks for this, Dad. It was a lot of fun."

And you won't believe this, but I heard them in their leaving confessional, talking about binge-watching Pahkitew Island – our season!

And you know what? Today was so far, the best day of the competion. And not just Sky and I won the leg.

 **Hmmm...who is that crush from the first season that Julie mentioned? You can leave your answer in the reviews. All I'll say is that the crush is not currently in a relationship. Hope you liked this chapter!**


	18. Chapter 18

**Okay...I guess it's the Arctic Circle next. If you think I've been there, you don't know me. Sorry, guys, but I'm not for cold temperatures. Give me a warm sunny day with a light breeze, and I'm happy! Cold places always seem to be suffering from windstorms.**

 **Thanks for reviewing, Nicky Haugh, Pokemon FTW, Phenomenal Styles and Lord of the Sloths!**

Although Alberta had nice weather and I was riding high on our win, I was anxious to get to the next challenge. When I discussed this feeling with Sky, she admitted she felt the same way. "But there's something I'm sort of nervous about." she added, waving her hand in the direction of one of the teams.

I paused, looking over at them. "What? Have they said something to you?" It was the Ice Dancers. They'd seemed happy enough when they placed the day before. I had thought that was strange, considering how competitive they were – wouldn't they hate placing low?

They weren't looking at us now. They seemed to be deep in conversation, although whatever they were talking about was inaudible.

"You might not have noticed, but whenever Josee thinks we're not looking, she keeps glaring at us." Sky explained. "I've caught her doing it a few times. I think she's worried that we're a threat."

I frowned. "Well, they still owe us a favour." I said finally. "If they try anything, I'll just have to remind them that cheating can lava rock-et them back into last place." I didn't really know if what I'd said made sense, but it made Sky laugh, so that was good enough for me.

The next day, we felt full of energy as I pressed the button on the Don Box and Sky took the tip. "Arctic Circle." she said. "We're on a smaller plane than usual – it takes just us and one other team."

That team being the Surfer Dudes. We were perfectly happy with that, since we liked the two guys and they seemed to like everyone.

I noticed something else on the tip that Sky hadn't read out. "Uh-oh."

"What?" Sky asked.

I pointed to what I'd noticed. "Did you read that bit?"

Sky's eyes widened. "Another boomerang? I thought that it was just a gimmick for the Australian challenge, because that's where boomerangs come from."

"Point is," I said, "If the Ice Dancers get it again, we're in trouble. After placing first last time..."

Sky gave a nod. "No matter who gets it, we'll have to make sure we don't stay too close to the rest of the teams once we've finished the first challenge, just in case one of them tries to send us back."

Neither of us considered the scenario we actually got. Sky pushed the button on the tip box we landed next to (with Don wearing a hoodie), and we both cheered when we saw the little red symbol attached to our tip.

"We better wait until we use it, though." Sky said thoughtfully. "If we're far enough ahead, we might not even need to use it."

I read the tip. "Botch or Watch. Is it my turn?"

Sky nodded. "So what do you have to do?"

Instead of answering, I noticed how the Surfer Dudes were already starting to look, and started on the challenge. "Supposed to find a ring in the snow and toss it onto a narwhal's – here!" I pulled out a golden ring. "Wait – a narwhal?" Sky blinked.

As it was, by the end of the challenge, I was wishing it was Sky's turn. It didn't help when Josee spoke up to us, saying "Are you two still here? Weren't you first last time? I thought you were one of the stronger teams, but maybe not."

I saw the cross look on Sky's face, but she kept her voice level and said "We're doing just fine, thank you." Anyone who didn't know Sky would have thought she was just mildly annoyed, but I could hear the edge in her voice.

We weren't the only ones struggling with the challenge. Geoff took ages to find a ring, and once he did, he threw it into the water before a narwhal even popped up. However, in contrast, a narwhal popped up right next to the Goths, and Ennui just had to let go of the ring to win. They were the first to leave on the snowmobile.

We finished just before one team – the Police Cadets. So, yeah, okay, we waited by the second Don Box for them to be done before sending them back. Don also appeared to let us know that since they were doing the hadchallenge again, MacArthur had to do the ring toss.

"Sorry, guys, but we want to win too." I told them as we got our tip. We had to build an igloo and get it approved.

As we walked on, we heard Emma call "Hey, guys!" to the Reality TV Pros.

They immediately stopped for a moment, and Noah called back "Hi, Emma!"

"This is adorable!" I whispered to Sky. "I'm pretty sure Noah's discovered the question of who can melt a frozen heart."

"Yeah, okay, now can we focus?" she whispered back.

So, okay. We didn't make first place, nor did we end up in last. It was a non-elimination round, anyway. But the boomerang at least took away the uncertainty, putting the Cadets in last place, but letting them escape elimination.

As for who had won?

The Surfer Dudes. Brody was in happy tears when we reached the carpet. I had to ask him what happened. "Nothing too much." he said. "We just talked through a couple things that the Ice Dancers were saying. But it was stuff we needed to hear. Geoff's just making a tribute for them now."

Sky was listening to this, too. Once Brody was out of earshot, she told me "Right. I heard Josee telling Geoff that she hoped he didn't lose his best friend because of his lack of skills at the ring toss. She was trying to lower their confidence. It's the same thing she was doing to us. They placed just behind us last challenge. I don't think it's a coincidence."

"So why did they think it was a good thing?" I frowned.

"Well, they came first again." Sky pointed out. "Maybe it backfired. It didn't really affect us, did it?"

I shrugged. "I guess not. I wasn't really listening, and I was already useless at the ring toss. I wish it had been your turn. You probably did, too."

"Maybe." Sky said carefully. "I don't know how I am at throwing things. Maybe if _I_ had to be the thing sticking the landing on a narwhal..." We both giggled at the thought of Sky launching herself off the edge of the lake to land on the head of an unsuspecting marine creature.

I also had to talk to Carrie. "How's Devin?" I asked, as usual.

"Depressed." she answered. "He asked the Goths to for an alliance without asking me. Luckily, they don't do alliances. I know they're good and I had thought about asking them...but it would be kind of awkward. As it is, Devin's acting pretty gothic himself."

"He's moving on." I reminded her. "That's a good sign. He's been in denial, angry...has he tried bargaining?"

Carrie thought about it. "Well," she said slowly, "He asked me just before that if he tried to do the ring toss too, if it would make Shelley think about taking him back. After I said probably not, that's when he started getting depressed."

"Okay, so he's in the fourth stage now." I confirmed. "You don't have too much longer to wait from now on. Just wait until Devin gets through this stage, and he should be his normal self again."

Of course there were no restaurants in the Arctic Circle, but everyone huddled inside their tents for most of the night. I couldn't help worrying about our low placing. How might that affect our chances for the next leg?

 **I know, a pretty short chapter this time. Lord Of The Ring Toss...it's not much of a fun challenge and the location isn't one I can play with the way I can play with others. We might as well go to a cute Halal cafe next chapter!**


	19. Chapter 19

**Indonesia...well, never made it there. I'm not sure if I want to go or not. It sounds like a mixed bag. One thing I do know, though – I'm not a jungle person. I'd rather keep my distance from the dragons!**

 **Thanks for reviewing, Nicky Haugh, Phenomenal Styles (I meant to say I was sorry!), Pokemon FTW, Lord of the Sloths and TheProtecterOfHim.**

Apparently, the thank you tribute Brody had told me Geoff was making was a nipple carving. He'd actually managed to carve a swan out of ice – using his nipples, stiff from the cold. I'm not sure the Ice Dancers were that pleased. Well, I heard screaming in the confessional. Honestly, if Josee stayed in this race any longer, I'd have to sue her for assualt of the eardrums. At least when Jacques screamed, he was scared, not furious.

We had major luck, actually. Originally, the planes were only going to accept three teams on each flight, but two of them got attacked by angry narwhals (who had lost the rings), so we all ended up on the same flight. Good thing, too, I didn't exactly relish the idea of being stuck on a flight with only the Police Cadets resenting us for boomeranging them and the Fashion Bloggers, who were starting to feel underappreciated as they hadn't made strong ties with any other teams and seemed a bit homesick, honestly.

And where were we going? Flores, Indonesia.

"So, what do we know about this country?" I asked Sky casually, as if I knew anything about it. Luckily, I'd struck gold. Sky came to life, listing things about the jungle, the Komodo dragons and some of the attractions. "My dad's from Indonesia," she explained. "So we've been there on vacation a few times when I was a kid. My sister and I loved it there."

"Flores?" I asked.

Sky gave a sigh. "No. It's a pretty small place. I always wanted to go there, though. It's one of the only places where you can see Komodo dragons in the wild."

I grinned at the thought." Dragons? Real ones?"

"Not like fairytale ones." Sky clarified. "They're still pretty vicious, though, my dad said. He once went to Komodo National Park – Flores is part of that, as well as the island Komodo – and they're huge, dangerous things that are venomous and can snap your hand off if you get too close."

I paused, thinking. "How much would you bet that our challenge will have to do with them?"

"Fair point." Sky admitted. "I wonder if I can find out something that'll help us get close to them..."

We actually did have to take a taxi when we got there. We landed at a town called Maumere, and we had to go into the heart of the Indonesian jungle. I saw the Sisters and Reality TV Pros just ahead, both taking the same taxi, and there was even a dragon crossing!

We were right, anyway. Our first challenge was to get a vial of Komodo venom from these giant, beady-eyed creatures that looked vaguely like a tortoise who left their shell on the beach and hadn't bothered to go back for it.

"Isn't this a little dangerous?" Owen said uncertainly as each team started reading their tip.

"Danger?" scoffed Devin, who seemed to be feeling annoyed at pointlessness now. I got the feeling that might be the end of depression. "We all die eventually."

"We should hang out more." Ennui suggested to him.

Carrie, I noticed, was already turning to the crew member pointing the nearest camera at her. "Okay, if Devin ends up going goth, I am _not_ going goth for him." She heaved a sigh. "Yes, I would."

I caught her eye and gave her a reassuring look, mouthing a 'good luck' to her.

Sky noticed. "Since when are you so friendly with Carrie?" she asked. "You only started talking to her when Devin got dumped."

I shrugged. "I know it's challenge time, but Carrie's going through a hard time, with Devin heartbroken...I don't exactly feel like breaking her spirit right now."

Sky sighed. "I know. I feel sorry for her, too, but we've got to focus."

Yeah, we did. Everyone was having trouble with the challenge, but that wouldn't be true for long. The Surfer Dudes were looking for fire extinguishers, the Fashion Bloggers were edging close but kept taking a few steps back the minute a dragon moved, and it looked as if they were scared of the Goths. All Crimson had to do was hold out their vial, ask "Spare some venom?" and they ran away.

Well, we were lucky. We found a large patch of their shedded skin on the ground. "I have a feeling this could help us get close. Any ideas?"

Sky paused, thinking. "Yeah, we could get close to them with this, but how do we get their saliva?"

We walked around for a little while, Sky dragging the skin around with us. Then she saw it."

"They're eating from those bones!" she pointed. "If I take the vial, I might be able to fill it from the spit left on the bones."

"Um, who said you were doing that part?" I asked.

Sky laughed. "Well, who swam with sharks? You did! Who got to bungy jump first! You did! And who took the selfie on the waterfall in Zimbabwe-"

"Yes, okay, I get your point." I gave my own sigh. "If you want to risk your life, go ahead, don't let me stop you."

It turned out that was the easy part. Sky just crawled over with the skin covering most of her, and the other Komodo dragons just treated her like one of them. She got the venom pretty easily and then, she left the skin and hightailed it back to me.

We high-fived each other. "We rule!"

On our way to getting accepted by the local, I noticed Owen with a Komodo on top of him. He was holding a full vial and had some shedded skin, too, but was stuck underneath the creature. "Little help, mate!" he called out in what sounded like a fake Australian accent.

Noah's voice came from behind a rock. "He's your boyfriend, you dump him!"

Meanwhile, we also passed a tree where the Police Cadets were cowed, halfway up, surrounded by Komodo dragons below.

We were actually one of the first teams to hand in our vial, just after the Goths and before the Ice Dancers, who turned up less than a minute after us. The local handed me the tip.

"Prepare to meet your loom." I read out loud. "Wha?...Oh, we have to look through a pile of rugs to find one with the logo ot the race – you know, the globe?"

Call it local's luck (you know, since Sky was half-Indonesian), but it took us about half the time it took the other members of the top three. We brought our rug to the Chill Zone (not too far to run, just on the nearest beach), and Don declared us in first place.

The Goths, in second, didn't react, but the Ice Dancers...well, Josee took one look at us and the Goths and exclaimed "Bronze _again?_ This race is fixed!"

I took a step forward, unable to resist. "Hey, hey – this isn't the last leg yet. You're still in the race – you can still win this whole show. Does it really matter placing low once if you place high in the end?"

Well, that was totally the wrong thing to say. Josee didn't attack me, but she definitely didn't calm down, and Jacques glared at me – although that might have been because his partner was still in one of her tantrums and I hadn't helped any.

So, with us winning, who actually lost? It was a really tough call when it came down to it. I couldn't work out who was going home.

Well, it turned out to be...

The Reality TV Pros. They'd taken a long time getting Owen out from underneath the Komodo dragon because, unlike us, he hadn't ditched the skin until after getting the drool, plus he ended up getting drool from the one on top (minds out of the gutter, I'm talking about the venom in his system) in the eye. Maybe it was a good thing he was eliminated, so he could get that checked out.

After that, Owen actually found the rug he wanted, but he'd also caused a rug avalanche finding it. Noah ended up buried, and he didn't get out until after everyone else found and showed off their rugs. In fact, the only reason he got out was because most of us ran back, and Emma called ouf that she'd kiss him if she could find him. Nothing like a girl's kiss to get a guy some extra power.

Okay, so I had a great time watching them kiss before the two guys began to walk off to call a taxi to go back to the airport, saying their final confessional. I actually heard Owen's first part - "As reality shows go, that got as real as reality shows get."

Well, they sounded happy, so that was nice. After all, Noah had gotten a girlfriend out of the whole deal.

We set up camp back on the edge of Maumere, and then, pretty much all of us went to find a restaurant. Sky and I took the Sisters with us on purpose, since Emma was already starting to mope about missing Noah, and we went to a little Halal restaurant called Rumah Makan Chaney. Emma cheered up a little bit, but only when Kitty reminded her that it was now truly game on, since their alliance was gone.

Apart from that, it was a pretty good meal. I mean, it was a clean place with good service and I enjoyed the fried rice. Also, no one got food poisoning, which is more than I can say for the Fashion Bloggers, who's apparently chosen a place that seemed called the Golden Fish which seemed nice but made them both a bit...green.

"We don't have the strongest stomachs," Jen explained. She at least didn't seem to be close to passing out, like Tom, but she still didn't look too good. "We don't really like seafood anyway, but it was the only place that looked all right."

I had to wonder what that would mean for them. Would they be all right to compete tomorrow?

 **Okay, I know this chapter was still pretty short, but it's setting up for a few new developments I'm planning. I just really wanted to get this out, and I do feel like I managed to get some things established. I did, after all, look up Flores just to see what it was like there. No offense to anyone who owns the Golden Fish if they're reading this, I know it's a good restaurant. It's just a plot device. Hope you liked this chapter more than the last one!**


	20. Chapter 20

**Okay. Vegas? Well, I can't say anything about the desert anyway (I know Nevada is mostly desert), but I haven't been to Vegas, either. Closest I've been is Los Angeles, unless Malibu is closer, but I think that's closer to Arizona than Nevada...whatever. Thanks for reviewing, Nicky Haugh, Mistress Mysterious, Lord of the Sloths, Phenomenal Styles, TheProtecterOfHim and Pokemon FTW.**

The Fashion Bloggers looked a little better in the morning. They still looked a bit washed out and haggard, but they weren't green any more. Just white. Yeah, I had heard the sound of retching from my tent, but I hadn't known that it was...okay, no, couldn't say that with a straight face. Of course I was sure it was them! I mean, Chaney didn't have air-con, but at least it hadn't made anyone sick.

Not that anyone else seemed ill, either. In fact, it was probably safe to say that most of us felt great. Emma was still a bit down, but everyone else was energetic, itching to get to the next challenge. Well, I couldn't tell with the Goths, but who could?

I hit the Don Box first, and Sky checked out the tip. "Las Vegas." she told me.

I grinned while we hailed a taxi. "I wonder if they'll ask me for an ID at the casino."

"You'll have to keep wondering." Sky said matter-of-factly. "Check what we're supposed to be doing."

I looked at the tip. " _Seriously?_ We have to take a taxi to the outskirts? I thought Las Vegas was the gambling capital of the world, so why aren't we doing something to do with that?"

"Well, we're underaged." Sky pointed out. "I know we're the youngest at sixteen, but Crimson and Ennui are underage, too. I think you have to be twenty-one in America, so that's most of us. In fact, if it was a challenge to do with gambling, Kitty and Josee would have to wait outside for their partners."

I sighed. "Fair point. Maybe we can find somewhere cool to go around tonight, though. Vegas is famous for nightlife, after all."

We were all on the same flight again – eight hours. Sky and I didn't bother trying to swap information about Vegas, since we weren't going any further than a Don Box in the desert, so I spent the flight chatting with some of the other teams.

The Fashion Bloggers had use for the barf bags, apparently, so I left them to it and chatted to the Best Friends. Carrie was in a good mood, and finally, so was Devin. "I know I've been a pain for a while." he said. "I'm really lucky to have someone who'll put up with me." He nudged Carrie playfully.

She just laughed. "You weren't a pain, really." she said, blushing a little. "I mean, it was understandable."

"Well, it's a good thing you're over it, Devin." I said brightly. "You two make a great team, and I would've hated to see you lose just because of a break-up." I was trying to make a slight hint to Devin about how lucky he was to have a bestie who could also be his girlfriend, but I didn't say any more. After all, I'd promised not to say anything.

"Yeah." Devin said. "Now that I'm back on full form, we are going to be an unstoppable force!"

There were a lot of taxis waiting outside the airport, so Sky and I grabbed one and told the guy the address we got from the tip, and we were off, through the streets lined with neon signs and skyscrapers and the Eiffel Tower replica.

"Look out for restaurants and shows we're allowed into for tonight!" I whispered to Sky.

"Just as long as you stop thinking about them during the challenge." Sky whispered back, but she smiled, so I knew she didn't mind so much. She'd mellowed a lot, but I knew how important it was to her that we focused during the challenge.

This time, she hit the Don Box when we found it, and I took the tip. "Either-Or." I read out. "Dune Buggies or Magic Show. So our choices are – one of us controls a Dune Buggy on a course with a console and the other one of us grabs flags in the buggy, and we have to get it completed within one minute, or we make a lion disappear on a stage and get a magician's approval. One of us would have to be the magician, and the other would be the assistant." I looked at Sky. "I don't really mind what we do. It's your call."

Sky paused, thinking. Finally, she said, "I used to be really good at video games. Magic sounds like it might be hard, and we'd have to take turns. They'll probably have more than one buggy, so we won't have a wait. Are you okay with getting the flags while I control?"

I shrugged. "Why not? I never had anyone to play video games with when I was younger, and none of my friends from home are into it. I tried to get Ella to play a fighter game with me because she almost never argues with me, but after five minutes, she got stubborn and said she hated all the violence. So I'm fine with you doing the controls."

We were actually the fourth team ready. Geoff, Emma and Sanders had already been around the course at least once when we got there, and when I was on the way past the control box, I could hear MacArthur and Kitty yelling at each other.

"You're gonna have a hard time taking selfies when I break your little toothpick arms!" MacArthur threatened. Not too different for her.  
What was weird was hearing the aggressive reply Kitty gave. "Back off, mall cop! I've got a brown belt in fusion kickboxing-yoga!"

I didn't hear any more words, but I could still hear them yelling as I went for the flags. Then, as I finally reached the end of the circling course, we checked the timer at the same time.

"YES!" I jumped out of my buggy and Sky climbed down the control box and we high-fived for the fifty-eight seconds. It was the only challenge, and now it was time to run for the Chill Zone.

Geoff had also finished the course – in less than fifty seconds, no less, or should that be no _more_ –, but for whatever reason, he was doing it all over again. Kitty and MacArthur were too involved in attacking each other to focus on the main objective, so they hadn't made good time yet. Poor Emma looked as if she was about to be sick all over the car.

We left just as the Best Friends arrived, almost daring to hope that we might make first place again. We hadn't seen what the Magic Show teams were doing though.

As it turns out, we were right to be wary of hope. "Frenemy Athletes, second place!" Don announced as we reached the carpet. The Goths had won this time.

One by one, the other teams arrived. The Police Cadets, Sisters and Surfers (even though they'd finished the challenge first) all made it in time. In sixth place, the Ice Dancers finally ran up, followed by the Best Friends.

Another half-hour went by. The Fashion Bloggers still hadn't arrived. Don actually had to call another taxi because he couldn't be bothered to walk to the Magic Show set to tell them they were out of the race. It was annoying that I couldn't say goodbye to them, but oh well. I'd just have to find their website and message them on there after we won.

I suggested to everyone else that we find something fun to do that night. "We've all been working really hard to get this far. It's time we all did something together and forgot about the competition! We don't have to stick together, but it might be fun one time."

The Ice Dancers didn't want to come with any of us. They were still glaring at Sky and I, but they were on the Goths' case even more, since they'd beaten us today. Speaking of the Goths, they said they'd come, but broke off by themselves after we got into town. As for the rest of us? Well, Emma was the only one that was actually old enough for the casinos, so we didn't go into those. We wandered around some of the shops for a little while, then we eventually all agreed on a place to eat – an Italian place called Casa Di Amore.

To Carrie, I whispered "Isn't Italian the food of love? Or music – but there is a lot of jazz music. Maybe you and Devin should get a single table?"

To my surprise, Carrie looked uncomfortable and shook her head. "I don't think it'll ever happen." she said, trying to sound like it didn't matter. "Devin sees me as his best friend, nothing more. I'd rather stay like we are now. I've been trying too hard to please him, and I'm going to stop doing that and move on." She didn't even sit next to Devin, instead sliding into the seat between the Sisters. I was on the other side of Kitty, chatting with her, and Emma, who was still missing Noah, was a good match for Carrie and her attempt to stop feeling similarly.

Devin? Well, he looked pretty dejected, but he quickly composed himself and went to sit with the Surfer Dudes instead.

As for the food, oh, was it dreamy! We all shared two garlic loaves between the ten of us, and then – well, I ordered ravioli with marinara sauce, and – wow, the portions were huge. I mean, the menu said the ravioli was "jumbo" since there were only three, but they were just as filling as anything else on the menu.

Everyone else seemed to enjoy their meals. Most of us had ordered pasta or parmagiana, apart from MacArthur who ordered Osso Buco, a slow-cooked veal dish on risotto.

We all decided to have dessert, too. Most of us went for the chocolate souffle, but Sky chose the Exotic Bomba, since it was a sorbet low fat dish. Emma, also, looked through the dessert menu and decided on crème brulee. I deliberated for a time, but eventually chose the calloni – it just sounded so amazing, although the tiramisu was tempting (Brody did choose that, and actually managed to finish it).

It was one of the best meals I'd had during this race, and walking back after the meal was over felt a bit anti-climactic. But Kitty had taken pictures with her phone of everyone and promised to send them, so we'd have a memory of that great night.

Now, it was the final seven. In other words, endgame. We'd started out with nineteen teams, and twelve were gone. That was the reason I'd wanted to have dinner with most of the other teams. It was probably going to be the last time we could sit around, chatting and laughing until the game was over. Oh, I'd still be friends with some of the others. But we wouldn't be thinking about that for a long time. Not until the end of the race. As we went to find a taxi, I looked over at Sky, and knew she was thinking the same thing. This was when it would get serious.

Now, it was time to get tough, and get ugly.

 **You know, this is not my favourite challenge, but it meant I got to find a really good restaurant. I'm loving doing this research on each location! Even when I found places I knew, I did research on good food places. Even in places where I knew restaurants – btw, if you're ever in Melbourne, try Cookie. It's a great Thai place, and DO go for Asian food in NZ, we do good Japanese. And the UK does wonderful Indian, plus most Asian countries do amazing Italian, and don't forget-**


	21. Chapter 21

**All right, stopped ranting about which countries do the best international cuisines that aren't theirs. Now...Mexico. Well, I've never been there. I've heard horror stories about crime levels, and I know it's warm and sunny there. And they speak Spanish. But...well, Julie will be a lot more excited to visit it than I ever will, although I'd quite like to go there one day. Remember why?**

 **Thanks for your reviews, Nicky Haugh, TheProtecterOfHim, Phenomenal Styles, Pokemon FTW and Lord of the Sloths.**

I went to the confessional just before we started for the next location, just to vent. "I get the feeling that this is going to be the hardest part of the race. If we can survive the next few locations, the last one or two will feel just token. Even if we don't win, I think we'll feel like we've accomplished the most important thing. Well," I added with a grin, "As long as one of the teams we beat are the Ice Dancers."

As soon as Sky pushed the Don Box button and I pulled out the tip, I gave a major cheer. "Let's hit it! Acapulco, Mexico, here we come!"

"Why are you so excited?" Sky asked, staring at me curiously.

I giggled. "Look at this face, Sky. Notice anything?"

Sky gave me another curious look. After almost a full minute, she gave a nod. "I forgot! Your family's Mexican, right?"

I nodded. "I've never got to go to my parents' home, and I can't wait! How much do you bet the locals will speak to me in Spanish, thinking I'm a local. I'll just have to tell them: _Me llamo Julie. Vengo de Canada."_ ("My name is Julie. I come from Canada.")

"You never mentioned you spoke Spanish." Sky remarked.

I grinned again. "It never came up. I happen to be bilingual."

The bus taking us to Mexico was a chicken bus – that is we shared it with them. It was pretty loud and grubby, but oh well. It was a small price to pay for going to my family's home country.

The journey itself – while it was noisy, I still heard a few things. Sky and I happened to be sitting behind the Ice Dancers, who were whispering to each other and looking at the Goths, who were just in front. Devin, who'd noticed all the chicken faeces everywhere, offered his lap to Carrie, but she said no. Interesting – Carrie had said she was determined to move on from Devin, but it seemed like a total role reversal. The minute Carrie stopped trying to please Devin, he was trying to please her and, like he had before, she didn't even seem to notice.

Meanwhile, the Surfer Dudes were scoffing burittos from the bus station where we'd left Vegas and chatting loudly about how good they were, even getting MacArthur's attention.

At that moment, I caught a whisper from Jacques. "...athletes? It wouldn't take much to turn them against each other!"

This gave me enough motivation to listen closer.

"It would've been easier last week." Josee whispered back crossly. "But the only way to turn them against each other is to make out that one of them cheated."

I nudged Sky. "Hey, the Ice Queen and her knight are talking about making us look like cheaters to each other." I whispered, keeping my voice lower than theirs.

Sky frowned. "What?"

"In other words, they're afraid of us beating them and want to make it look like one of us cheated to make us hate each other." I whispered rapidly. "So if it looks like I did something unorthodox, promise to ask me before accusing me, so I can explain what happened?"

Sky nodded. "Don't worry, I won't jump to conclusions. I know those two have been cheating." Her mouth was set in a harsh line, the look she always got when she discussed cheating.

We somehow ended up being second-to-last last to the Don Box once we got off the bus (the Surfer Dudes felt the effects of sketchy bus station burritos and had to look for a bathroom), but at least the challenge looked easy enough . "All-In." Sky said. "One of us has to eat one of three peppers. The other has to jump off a cliff – the milder the pepper, the higher ledge to dive off."

"No-brainer." I shrugged. "I like spice, you're good at diving, right?"

Sky grinned. "Right!"

Almost no one had jumped when we got to the cart, along with other teams who weren't first to the Don Box. Possibly the only one was Sanders. MacArthur, meanwhile, was slumped on the ground. "Kill...me..." she said in a hoarse voice.

The rest of us looked at the peppers – the large mild yellow, the medium green, and the tiny fiery red.

"Okay, medium it is!" Kitty affirmed what the rest of us were thinking. I nodded at Sky and she went to climb up to the medium ledge with most of the other divers.

Crimson, however, went straight for the red pepper. She carefully chewed and swallowed. All that, and her only reaction was a dull "Ow."

Okay, so maybe I shouldn't have pushed in front of Jacques when I took the green pepper. But I was desperate not to finish in last, and apart from Devin, who was struggling with a mild pepper and one or two other teams, most of gothem had finished. Plus, once Sky had dived, she was supposed to find a canteen of milk with a tip attached, the milk being for me, of course.

Finally, I waved the flag. "Jump!" I called, just as the full force of the spice hit me and my tongue became paralyzed. Sky did a perfect swallow dive, just as Jacques snatched the flag off me and waved if for Josee to jump.

And then, I felt it. There was this weird furry sensation on my back, like something was...I don't know...alive. Sky showed me the tip (we had to take two burros to the Chill Zone), I drank the milk, but the sensation carried on. I wasn't sure what it was.

Then, Sky narrowed her eyes at me. "Are you carrying something?" she asked, looking suspicious.

I shrugged. "Am I? I don't know – I think someone stuck something furry down my back, now that you mention it. Can you help me get it out?"

Sky reached up my T-shirt and pulled. Out fell... _what?_

"Okay, Sky, before you say anything, no, I have no idea how Loki got from Ennui to me!" I said quickly. "You promised to listen before accusing me of anything, remember?"

As I spoke, Loki was already hopping back to the cliff, obviously looking for the Goths.

Sky still looked suspicious. "And _no one_ got close enough to plant it on you or anything?" she said, as we mounted our donkeys.

"I..." I paused, thinking. Then I gasped. "Now I remember! When Jacques took the flag off me, he could've easily stuck something down the neck of my shirt, and don't forget, he and Josee are holding a grudge against the Goths right now, for beating them in the last two challenges. We're in the top two, and both of them know that if it looked like I was cheating, we'd be out ot the race in a heartbeat. So if Jacques threw the Goths off by kidnapping Loki, and then planted the poor thing on me..."

"Then they could be sure to make me quit the race, or delay the Goths." Sky said, her eyes hardening by the second. "Let's go."

That was all she said as we left for the Chill Zone, but it spoke volumes. I knew Sky was furious, but I said nothing. It made for a hard and uncomfortable ride to the Chill Zone, but at least Sky's anger wasn't directed at me. It was going to be D-Day for the Ice Dancers when they reached the Chill Zone.

And D-Day for the Goths, apparently. The Ice Dancers actually won the leg, and didn't even get a penalty. Don obviously had no idea what they'd been up to, but honestly! Luckily, we made it into fourth place, beating the Surfer Dudes and Best Friends, but only finishing after the Sisters.

The Goths arrived last. "Crimson, Ennui, rabbit," Don said, "You're the last to arrive. I thought I would be saying this on day one, but here it is: You've been cut from the competition!"

No reaction. Don scowled. "I wish you luck in whichever cult or circus you end up in. Go away."

And as they walked away, Jacques and Josee high-fived each other.

And then, Sky, quiet, levelheaded Sky who usually kept her temper in check, suddenly lost her composure. She stepped up to the two of them, and even though I was a distance away, I heard what she said.

"I know what you two did. Stay away from us from now on. You know that Don hates cheaters, and we'll make sure that next time you cheat, you'll get penalized. I knew my teammate wouldn't pull such a low trick."

That last line, that defense, it made me feel so happy. I couldn't believe that Sky trusted me enough to strike a blow like that, not just for fairness, but for me too. Even if it had made us more of a target for them, I really didn't care.

I talked to some of the others that night, too. Kitty mostly. She said Emma was getting better, "But she's still thinking about Noah." she said. "She even called me Noah earlier on today. I think she's getting a bit better, though."

"I think that's kind of sweet, considering." I smiled. "What about you, though?"

Kitty laughed. "Me? I'm kind of enjoying the race, but it is harder." She gave a sigh. "I liked it better earlier on, when everyone was just kind of having a good time and enjoying themselves."

I shrugged. "You know, you should go tell Geoff and Brody that. They're the masters of having a good time in any situation."

Kitty giggled. "Maybe I will."

The Best Friends seemed a little awkward around each other, too. Carrie kept shooting Devin these curious sidelong glances, like she was still into him, but not sure how to react. She said she was over him, but I couldn't tell if she really was. As for Devin, he was acting more like a puppy, always hanging around Carrie, asking her if he could do anything, or if she wanted to go somewhere – what was going on?

Eventually, I had to ask. I dragged Devin off for a moment and asked him straight out. "Look, I'm seeing something weird going on here. Are you trying to make things up to Carrie after being a pain or whatever? Because I think you're annoying her more than helping her."

Devin looked completely devastated. "I...I'm annoying her? I didn't mean to! I'm just trying to be there for her. She was there for me, and I messed up majorly yesterday. She says she's not mad, but...and the pepper today – I was desperate to eat the hottest pepper and prove myself, but I couldn't even do that!"

I frowned. "You've known Carrie, like, forever! Why are you so worried about messing up all of a sudden? You've probably messed up in front of her before."

Devin scowled. "Okay, maybe, but that was before..."

"Before..." I prompted.

He suddenly blurted it out. "Before I realized I was in love with her!"

Well, that was not what I expected. I couldn't even speak for a second, I just stood there. Then I found my tongue. "No! I can't believe – could there be a worse time for this?"

"What?" Devin scowled again.  
I tried to work out what to say. I didn't want to tell him the roles had reversed, because if Carrie truly was over him, things would get weird between them. On the other hand, I couldn't tell him that Carrie used to love him and that he'd lost his chance.

In the end, I settled for "You don't need to try so hard to impress Carrie. You've been best friends for years and you know each other really well. Do you _think_ she would be best friends with you if she didn't already care about you? All you really need to do is try and drop some hints that show you want to take your relationship with her further. If she picks up and feels the same way, trust me, she'll act. But if she doesn't, you'll still be best friends forever, right?"

Devin gave a sigh. "I know, but it's really hard. I wish Carrie could understand what I'm going through here. I feel like I need to prove that I'm worth it."

"Well, don't." I said bluntly. "If Carrie wants to date you, she'll want the best friend she grew up with."

Boys...they always think they know best. No matter how sound my advice was, I was pretty sure he wouldn't take it.

 **Okay, an interesting point – not having the Daters prevented Devin from rubbing his eyes because originally, he did it because he saw Carrie and Ryan were holding hands, so his eyesight's fine, but his mouth still needs to recover. However, as I said, Jacques planted Loki on Julie in order to kill two birds with one stone and damage the Frenemy Athletes along with the Goths. It didn't work, but Loki still delayed the Goths enough to put them in last again. But the Ice Dancers haven't forgotten that the Frenemy Athletes are strong...**


	22. Chapter 22

**Vietnam. Okay, well, I've never been there, but I'd like to go. It sounds like a very cute place with great cuisine and...well, I know little else, but still. I've been to Japan, China and Korea...but not Vietnam! On a side note, when Can Tho was pronounced "Kanto", did anyone else think of Pokemon?**

 **Thanks for reviewing, Nicky Haugh, Pokemon FTW, DannyPhantom619, Phenomenal Styles, Lord of the Sloths and TheProtecterOfHim.**

Since the part of Acapulco we were staying in was far away from any restaurants, I didn't try to go anywhere. It was enough to stare at the scenery and feel the humid air on my skin as I scoffed a BLT roll. I didn't see any locals until the next day, but despite the tension between us and the Ice Dancers, it was a pretty good night.

A highlight was when MacArthur approached Sky. "I was just waiting for someone other than me to give those two a little beatdown about the way they play!" she said with a grin. "Looks like everyone's finally waking up to them – just if you have to do that again, give them a punch from me, if I haven't gotten the chance!"

Sky flushed pink. "Um...thanks, I guess." she said. I could tell she didn't like having to tell the team off, and being congratulated for it was not what she expected.

In the morning, once again, tips were received and taxis were called. "Can Tho, Vietnam." was all I said to Sky as I read the tip.

As I said, it wasn't until we reached the airport, but hundreds of the locals at the check-in and passport control and everything greeted me in Spanish and Sky in English, clearly recognizing my features as Mexican, but recognizing that Sky probably didn't speak Spanish. Half the time, they didn't even realize that we were together. Obviously Total Drama wasn't as widely known here.

"I'm just visiting." I told the woman at Passport Control in Spanish. "We're both from Canada – I don't know if the Total Drama series airs here, but we were both on the last season. My parents were born here, though."

As we boarded the flight, Sky whispered to me "What else does the tip say? Where are we going when we get there?"

"Mekong River." I replied. "We'll just need to run for the first taxi."

Neither of us knew much about Vietnam, but that was all right. No one else seemed to, either. The Ice Dancers were whispering together on the flight again, but I guessed what they were whispering about, and it was probably the Police Cadets, who'd come so close to beating them this time. Or us, since we still had two first-place wins and a couple of second place wins too.

The Sisters didn't know much about Vietnam, either. Their features were actually Korean, but since their knowledge about the culture was limited due to being third-generation to one Asian parent and second to the other, it wouldn't be much of an advantage to them even if we _did_ visit Korea.

The Police Cadets and Surfer Dudes weren't much help, either. They seemed to know nothing about the culture. Devin joked that he liked the food, prompting a giggle and a raised eyebrow from Carrie, but that was about all we got. So it looked like we'd all be heading into Can Tho clueless.

Vietnamese Airlines also had pretty hopeless entertainment, and after my hundredth game of sudoku, I tried to sleep through the flight. Not easy, since it was nineteen hours long and we were stuck in economy class.

Okay, so we got the first taxi immediately and were first to the Don Box. I slammed my hand on the button and Sky took the tip. She frowned. "Superteam challenge? Three teams must go catfish...noodling together."

I looked over her shoulder. "So we..stick our hands in the water and wait for a catfish to grab hold of it. We need six, unless we get some catfish with a Ridonculous logo on-" I was cut off by a sharp shove away from the Don Box and a following burst of cruel laughter.

I didn't need to look up to see who the annoying laughter came from. "Don't tell me we have to work with these two." I groaned in a low voice.

"We will." Sky whispered back. She'd been pushed, too, so as we got up and dusted ourselves off, the Police Cadets arrived and tripped the Ice Dancers long enough for Sanders to get the next tip. Well, okay, if I had to work with the Ice Dancers, at least we'd have one team I could stand.

"Looks like you guys are with us this time." I said as Sanders read the tip, trying to keep a proper smile on my face as I spoke. Well, I didn't get any weird looks, so I must have succeeded.

Josee also got her team's tip. Then she looked around at both us and the Police Cadets. "Looks like we'll be working... _together._ " She sounded as if she was forcing the words out.

MacArthur's expression was resigned. "Yeah. Guess it's you four guys, and us guys."

"Come on!" Sanders said in a more enthusiastic tone. "Let's get a boat!"

The challenge was a disaster at first. No one was listening to anyone else. Within the first five minutes, all of the women were in the water, and Jacques was taking his time putting gloves on.

I actually felt kind of sorry for him when I heard the way Josee was speaking to him. "Jacques, get in here and noodle us some fish already! For the love of gold, this is just fish! And take off those gloves!"

Okay, okay, I didn't think Jacques wearing gloves was a problem, but otherwise, Josee sort of had a point. But did she have to be so rude and demanding? How had Jacques stuck with her so long?

They weren't the only problem. MacArthur was screaming at the fish to get on her arm, scaring them all away. When Sanders actually got one, it was scared enough to fall off and swim away as fast as possible. Then the second time she got one, MacArthur took it off her in order to slap Josee with it.

By this point, only I had actually managed to put a fish in the boat, and I had to shake my arm until it dropped into the boat, since Jacques refused to touch it. But I could see that the lack of teamwork was getting to everyone. I wasn't sure who was going to break first.

"Listen up, team!" It was Sanders. "In case you haven't noticed, we're _losing!"_

Everyone was shocked into silence long enough to watch the Best Friends, Sisters and Surfer Dudes, on a different part of the river. They'd just gotten another fish. "Nice!" Emma exclaimed. "Only two more to go, guys!" Then she and Kitty high-fived. They'd gotten far further than we had, and we'd been doing this challenge longer.

"Sanders is right!" Sky added. "We need to act as a team, just like them!"

"But...they're cooperating." Josee forced the word out, syllable by syllable. "I was not born with that gene."

"Okay. Obviously, we hate each other." Sanders began again.

"Absolutely." Josee agreed.

"I hate her more." MacArthur added.

"Not really." I muttered. "I don't hate many people."

Sanders shrugged at my comment. "But right now, couldn't we hate them more, because they're beating us?"

We agreed to a truce for the moment, but Josee's first idea of strategizing, was, of course, to try and sabotage the other team. And MacArthur went right along with her.

"I"ve created an Axis of Evil." Sanders muttered.

"Can't we stop them?" Sky suggested. "I don't want to win unfairly!"

As it was, we didn't have to win unfairly. We ended up catching the branded catfish, which not only let us finish this challenge, but also skip the next challenge and go straight to the Chill Zone. It was a three-way tie for first.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but..." Sanders began. "Should we keep the Axis of Evil together until the final three?"

Well, the Police Cadets and Ice Dancers seemed to want to. I looked at Sky for an answer. She said nothing, so I smiled and held out my hand, first shaking with MacArthur, then Josee, as the respective team decision-makers. "After all," I smiled, "I helped you guys before with that bad luck charm." My words were meaningful there. I looked Josee straight in the eyes when I said it, just as a reminder. It didn't look like there was any chance in her eyes, but I had to just hope that reminded her that she and Jacques might not have gotten this far without my help.

Sky and I made a joint confessional about it. "We're just going along with it for the moment." I explained. "We know those two hate each other more than us, so as long as we're friendly to both of them, we should be safe for one more round. And hey – if we find a chance to take the Ice Dancers out, it's pretty much just letting everyone else have a fair chance because that'll be the last bit of cheating on the show."

"We're not relying on their help." Sky said firmly. "It's just important at this stage of the game not to look like too much of a threat. And we're not going to target the other three teams – we're going to keep playing clean."

Vietnam was pretty warm, actually, although not as much as Mexico, so when we got first-place soft drinks, it was actually quite nice to sip at the cans, waiting for the last three teams to emerge from the caves that were nearby. That had been the second challenge – getting through the dangerous caves and not getting lost.

The Sisters were the first to come out, looking happy to be out of there. The Surfer Dudes came next, followed closely by the Best Friends. As they ran, I saw Brody and Geoff saying something to each other, and they slowed down, just enough for the Best Friends to pass them.

"Did you see that?" I whispered to Sky. "They just put themselves in last place – and I don't think that was an accident!"

"That is the most unselfish thing I've seen on any reality show." Sky whispered back, her voice full of awe. "I can't believe that they could actually sacritice themselves."

It wasn't like they were particular friends with the Best Friends, either. The Surfers liked almost everyone, but they weren't particular friends with anyone except each other.

The Best Friends didn't seem to realize that they'd just been given a second chance – they were too happy just to still be in it. And then, Carrie spoke up. "Hey, homie – back in the tunnels, I think you were, um, trying to tell me something?"

Devin smiled nervously. "Yes...yes, I was. Um, I wanted to tell you...well, can I talk to you later?" He cast a glance around at the rest of us ."Like, when we're alone?"

Carrie looked surprised, but she said "Uh, sure. Of course."

And the Surfer Dudes? They were eliminated. They seemed a little sad about it, but they were enthusiastic as they looked back on their time on the show – their experiences and the friends they made, and how much fun they had. So at least that was good for them.

Can Tho was full of both cheap and expensive restaurants, so Sky and I decided to go and find one – just us, this time, not any of the other teams (we couldn't be friendly with another team outside of the Axis of Evil, and we needed a break from our "alliance", anyway.). It was sort of a reverse of Mexico – Sky's half Indonesian looks made her look a little more like the locals than I did, so people barely gave her a second glance, but looked at me warily.

We ended up in a little crowded place called Nem Nuong Thanh Van – we even splashed out on an entree of spring rolls, then I ordered a pork noodle bowl and Sky ordered rice paper pancakes. The staff seemed a little bit tired and even forgot to refill our water glasses until after the spring rolls came out, but the food came out reasonably fast and the place was packed with locals, plus most of the staff spoke some English, though they still seemed a little surprised that Sky wasn't Asian at all, speaking English with no trace of any accent.

I sought out Devin that night after we got back. A few of the other teams had gone out for dinner, but Devin had decided to stay behind, while the Sisters had taken Carrie with them, so it was all safe.

"Did you tell her?" I asked gently. "You don't have to tell me what she said, if you don't want to."

Devin was looking upset, so I guessed he'd been rejected, but he answered my question. "I told her." he confirmed. "And she said...she said she needed some time to think before she could answer, but that she'd always be my best friend, no matter what."

I smiled. "There's no need to look like that, then!" I told him cheerfully. "You look the way most of us did on Pahkitew Island when we thought Scarlett would get us all killed Something tells me that you've got a lot of luck on your side. Ask Kitty if you don't believe me – she knows Carrie better than I do. And even if she doesn't want to be with you, hey, you'll still be a really important part of her life."

Devin brightened up a little. "You're right! If I look at it that way, it doesn't seem so worrying. And I'll admit it was a relief to get it out, because now I can stop feeling like I have to impress her and just go back to being me. And...well, I can think of a million worse ways that it could have gone."

A shaky alliance, a love confession and noodle soup all in the same afternoon. Could Vietnam hold anything more dramatic?  
 **You can tell I love the idea of visiting Vietnam. Spring rolls and pork noodles are the exact kind of things I'd love to eat, so you'd better believe that if I ever go to Can Tho, I'll be stopping at Nem Nuong Thanh Van – it's even got an English menu, according to Trip Advisor (if you were wondering, I look up restaurants in each place and try to find the menus, which is how I get so much detail – although admittedly I've never been to Purple Peanuts even though I know my way around Melbourne).**


	23. Chapter 23

**All right! Siberia. Well, okay, I've never been there. To be honest, the description of the winter puts me off.**

 **Oh yes, and I should remind you, this universe is the same one Danni completed in, but there are mentions of Mal, so I should remind you that Mike left between episodes 4 and 5, and Mal's name never actually came up.**

 **Thanks for reviewing, Nicky Haugh, Phenomenal Styles, Pokemon FTW, Lord of the Sloths and TheProtecterOfHim.**

Although I felt tense at the thought of the Axis of Evil alliance when we were meant to leave at noon, it somehow just made me more determined and pumped for the next challenge. Even so, Sky and I stood back and only took our tip after the Ice Dancers and Police Cadets had taken theirs.

"Siberia." Sky told me. We hailed a taxi and made it to the airport in time for the next flight. Well, okay, we all did. I won't lie, we were all cutting it close. If not for the pilot's slowness in closing the cabin doors, the Sisters and the Best Friends might not have made it.

But I was kind of glad they did, although as we took off, I could hear Josee angrily muttering about us all being on the same flight in the seats behind us.

"So what do we know about Siberia?" I asked Sky.

"Don't ask!" she replied, laughing. "Just thinking about it makes me freeze!"

"I'm guessing we'll do something to do with heat, then." I said thoughtfully. "Remember the sauna in Finland? I bet there'll be something to do with either trying not to freeze to death or overheat."

The flight was a long one, since we had to go from East Asia to West Europe. Siberia was right opposite Alaska, but...well, at least the entertainment was pretty good. There were even some older episodes of Total Drama on there – just Revenge Of The Island and All-Stars, but it gave me a chance to count my lucky stars. The Ice Dancers were cheaters and not very nice people, but at least they couldn't pretend to be perfectly innocent friendly people, then suddenly try to kill you. In other words, they weren't that alternate personality that kept breaking things. He wasn't in that many episodes, but I couldn't help watching Mike intently, looking for signs. But when he asked Danni and Zoey to vote him off, I stopped watching so closely. Only the real Mike would have asked for something like that.

I nudged Sky. "You know, I forgot how lucky we were." I pointed at the screen, which now showed Mike and Scott doing a one-on-one challenge. "Remember, Mike had that alternate personality that got him in juvie? I don't think we have anyone that dangerous around."

Sky gave a small smile. "I guess you're right. It's like, there's always someone, but it depends on what standards they have. Like you – you have standards."

"Hey," I shrugged, "Most of the other villains did, too. Heather expressed shock at some of Alejandro's actions. Courtney got cross when Chef thought she'd made her shark into sushi because she hated them thinking she'd be that cruel. And you know that reunion party Sierra invited us to? I talked to Alejandro there and he was actually really friendly, and not at all a flirt. I think he really is a cool guy when he doesn't have to manipulate anyone."

"Like you, you mean?" Sky teased.

I'd been insulted that night in the treehouse when she'd used that comparison, but now, it made me giggle. "Right, I guess so! Except when I make friends on the show, I only befriend people I actually like."

When we landed, I raced out of the airport and snatched up the first tip. "Great!" I turned to Sky. "We better get our swimsuits. We have to take an ice yacht to the Kola Borehole. At least it says we'll get our clothes back once we get there."

I had brought a bikini with me, but I hadn't used it since swimming in Hawaii. We hadn't been allowed to wear our swimsuits at all during challenges, but the point of visiting Siberia was to get cold and double the frostbite danger the exiles of Russia faced. Sky was lucky – I had to have a frozen bellybutton, but at least she just had a plain black onepiece, apparently from her high school swim team.

We weren't the first to get a yacht. I think it was because we got distracted by what we saw happening while the Sisters had already taken their yacht, and by the time we were ready, the Best Friends were already on their way, too.

The thing was, the Police Cadets were all ready to get going, when Josee accidentally on purpose shoved MacArthur. "Sorry about that." she said in the most insincere voice I'd ever heard. "It's slippery out here."

It gets worse. MacArthur had given a cry of shock when she was pushed, fell onto a trash can, and now her tongue was stuck. And to stay in good with the Axis of Evil, we should probably do something to help.

"Sky, can you save a yacht for us?" I asked. "I have an idea." While Sky went, I told the two girls "It's kind of gross, but the best thing to get a tongue free is warm spit. So Sanders, the way to do it is just lick your finger and then rub it onto the can until MacArthur's tongue is free. Sorry, but that's the most help I can give you."

The race to the Kola Borehole didn't take too long, which was nice. We even managed to pass the Best Friends, and almost gain level with the Ice Dancers.

"So," I said as we drove. "The Ice Dancers – well, Josee, at least – have just leveled up in the scale of Total Drama-related reality TV. They have just upped their ante from Scott to Alejandro."

"How is that stunt they pulled any different?" Sky asked. Before I could answer, she remembered. "Oh! Yes, I remember now. Alejandro made that happen to Bridgette. And...well, I guess he _does_ outclass Scott."

As we got our clothes back on and took the tip, we saw the Ice Dancers leap into view, also dressed and blowing kisses to the camera. On the other side of us, the Sisters were already starting the next challenge.

"Enough with that move already!" Kitty exclaimed.

"Yeah, we get it, you're ice dancers." Emma added.

"News flash: No one cares!" Kitty finished.

Sky, who was reading the tip, told me what it said. "One of us has to go into that hole and find a red ball. One of us has to lower the other down with that device."

"It better be you up here." I suggested. "You have more upper-body strength than I do. It's the reason I've never taken gymnastics classes."

Sky gave a nod. "I expected you to say that. Let's go!"

We had headsets, so I could let Sky know when I was down all the way. It was attached to my helmet, which had a light, so it probably wouldn't be too hard to find a ball.

After several minutes of being lowered down in the dark, I met Kitty on her way up.

"How easy is it?" I asked her.

"The helmet light makes it pretty easy." Kitty assured me. "Good luck!"

I didn't have the best of luck. Kitty had obviously found a ball right where she landed. It took me so long that after a few seconds, I heard Sky ask "Is everything all right?"

"It's just hard to find one." And just as I finally picked one up and called out a "Found it!", I heard another pair of footsteps hit the ground, just as Sky started pulling me up.

I did actually meet Carrie halfway up, but we didn't have much time to talk. I was pretty shocked when I found the Ice Dancers gone, MacArthur finally starting to lower Sanders down, and Emma and Devin waiting for their partners to find a ball.

I couldn't help hanging back. "Didn't Kitty find a ball?" I asked.

"Josee took it off her on the way up and smashed her light." Emma said, her mouth set in a harsh line.

"Julie, come on! We have to go!" Sky pulled me off to the Chill Zone – that is, a sauna. Yes!

We still only made second place. The Ice Dancers had arrived first again. Don was just announcing the end of a penalty – not for sabotaging the Sisters or Ice Cadets – because they didn't go all the way down to collect their ball. Josee had only made it halfway down and when she met Kitty, she took the opportunity and then told Jacques to pull her back up.

Then, I remembered something. When I'd first gone down, I'd heard Josee saying in a panic-stricken way "You _know_ I don't do well in tight spaces." Maybe that sabotaging hadn't just been for kicks and trying to win for once.

"I think Josee might be claustrophobic." I whispered to Sky.

"I could hear her panicking from Jacques' mic." Sky whispered back. "Every few seconds, she kept calling for Jacques to pull her back up. I think she might have calmed down a bit around the time she found Kitty, but only because Jacques had given her a pep talk."

The Best Friends and Sisters arrived. Then, Don got a call on his phone, just after the Sisters' arrival. He talked for a minute, than turned to us. "The Police Cadets will arrive shortly." he said. "They're in hospital at the moment. Sanders broke her arm."

That was a shock. What had happened in the Borehole? She'd been fine when they'd started that part of the challenge.

Whatever had happened, Sanders' arm was strapped up when they arrived, and Don told her that despite arriving last, it was a non-elimination round and the team could stay in the race if she felt up to it. "The choice is yours, but you have to make it now."

Sanders looked at her partner. "Have you learned your lesson?" MacArthur tried to give her a smile, but you could tell she was forcing herself. Sanders turned back to Don and said "I'm probably gonna regret this, but Don, we're still in the race!"

Sky and I went to the confessional. "I guess a broken arm isn't the same as a broken ankle, but I still think that makes Sanders tougher than me. I'm betting she'd still have tried to win that tree-hopping challenge I forfeited on during Pahkitew Island if she'd been there and had broken her ankle."

"She's tough." Sky agreed. "But if I'd broken my arm, I might have forfeited the race. Not definitely, but I would have doubted I could ever win if I was injured. We've been lucky this season." We both beamed big happy-to-be-alive-and-still-in-it-to-win-it smiles at the camera.

 **I know it's a short chapter, but I wanted to get it out. I've been busy working on my new fic "Entwined Across The Skywinder" (it's based in the universe of The Incredibles), but I wanted to get this out first. The next one might be a longer time coming, but hang on to find out!**


	24. Chapter 24

**Right, OK. We've been to Siberia. As for India – my mom and aunt traveled around there when they were in their twenties, but I haven't actually been there. Darjeeling is apparently a place where they don't use much spice in their food and it's very Tibetan, so probably not like the Indian foods I'm used to...thanks for reviewing, Nicky Haugh, Pokemon FTW, Lord of the Sloths and Phenomenal Styles.**

I was becoming increasingly good and wary of the final five, now that we could be sure the next location would have an elimination. Siberia didn't exactly have a great selection of restaurants, either, so we just had the usual cold food. Although I sent smiles towards the Sisters, Best Friends and Police Cadets, I didn't actually talk to anyone except Sky that night, and she was pretty quiet, too.

I couldn't blame her. No one really felt like talking.

However, this only made me feel a bit stir-crazy. I was happy to leave Siberia in the morning, but of course, we had to wait for the Ice Dancers to take their tip first.

Luckily, they didn't keep us in suspense. Josee looked at the tip and said "We're going to Darjeeling, India."

Sky and I also took our tip and ran for the next taxi, never looking back. Well, we couldn't afford to – this time, we needed to get the frontrunners out!

Well, we were all on the same flight, so that was a good start. In fact, our taxi passed the Ice Dancers' one and we got the seats nearest to the door. Economy ones, true, but the nearer to the door, the better.

"So, what do we know about India?" Sky mused.

"It used to be owned by England." I said. "We had to read that book _Passage To India_ in English class this year, and it was about this Indian doctor who really suffered when he was accused of something he didn't do, and no one believed him because he was a native Indian, not an English dude. And," I added, "I think India has this major class separation thing."

"Castes." Sky corrected. "I remember that. If I remember, the lowest caste is people who deal with the dead – a person from a higher caste can't even touch them because they're so low down. And there's the religions – I think it's mostly a Hindu country."

"But there's others too, right?" I asked. "Islams. And I remember one of the boys at my school moved from Delhi last year. He was very Christian. And India's, like, really diverse, isn't it – they have about a million languages."

Darjeeling was full of mountains. That was the first thing I noticed when we began our descent. "This looks like Nepal without the snow." I commented to Sky.

"I just remembered." Sky said slowly, checking the tip. "There's something else. This is supposed to be a place where tea leaves grow really well because of the mountain ranges. And the tip told us to get a taxi to go high up there once we leave the airport, so-"

"Don't tell me we're picking tea leaves!" I groaned. If nothing else, I knew India had to be really, really hot. And it was summer here!

As it was, the heat wasn't the only problem. India was REALLY humid. The sweat poured down us, plastering our hair to our foreheads and soaking our clothes.

It was worse once we got into the mountains. One second in the sun made the Ice Dancers almost drop to the ground. I felt so sluggish, like I could never run again.

The Sisters, whose taxi had drawn up right behind us, had similar sentiments. "This humidity's bad for my hair." Emma complained.

"Tell me about it." Kitty replied, who had it worse off with her pigtails sticking up in a mad frizz.

All the same, Sky picked up the first tip. "Teatime." she read. "Yes, we're picking tea leaves." She looked around, then pointed. "There – there should be ten baskets with straps. We need to take one each and fill them, then we'll take them to a local – I guess in that little shop over there?" She pointed way up to a tiny little tea shop.

"Let's go, then." I said decisively, probably sounding a lot more active than I felt. We pulled the baskets on, and started the job, throwing leaves over our shoulders into the baskets.

It was hard to ignore the heat, but on the bright side, we weren't doing as badly as some of the others. The Ice Dancers were in polyester, one of the worst materials for heat, plus their clothes were tight-fitting, and Josee even wore leg-warmers because her skirt was so short. The Sisters were also wearing tight clothes, and Kitty had stockings, which had to be a nightmare. As for the Best Friends..well, Carrie was wearing a tight sweater, which looked thick enough to be annoying in this weather, and as for the Police Cadets' uniforms...well, point is, Sky and I were wearing loose clothing that let our skin breathe, and no one else was, apart from maybe Devin. But he looked in bad shape anyway, probably still stressing since, as far as I knew, Carrie still hadn't given him an answer.

As I picked, I watched what the other teams were doing. The Best Friends were quietly working a few rows away from us, minding their own business. Meanwhile, I saw MacArthur talking to the Ice Dancers, then Sanders saying something else to them, making the Ice Dancers' smiles disappear. Josee looked furious, and although I couldn't hear what she was saying, I could hear her voice and her tone made me shiver. It was almost as scary as Evil Scarlett's voice (so different from the Nerdy Scarlett voice she usually had).

After that, the Ice Dancers went to talk to the Sisters. I didn't watch them too much, but I heard two familiar laughs a few minutes later, and then Kitty yelling "We hate you!", so it didn't take a genius to guess that they'd just been sabotaged.

We were very lucky, this round. The Ice Dancers didn't go after us, probably believing we still thought of them as alliance partners, and so we actually got into second place, just steps behind the Ice Dancers. We got to the door just as we heard Don speaking. "Why can't you just get eliminated already?"

"In your dreams." Josee told him arrogantly.

"Yes, I do dream about it," Don told them bluntly, "And what sweet, sweet dreams they are."

I nudged Sky and we exchanged grins. Chris would never have said something like that to them – in fact, his reaction would have more likely been "Brutal! You guys are so awesome!" It had been easy to like Don far more, but hearing him openly tell the Ice Dancers he wanted them to lose was just the icing on the cake.

It helped that when we stepped in, Don actually smiled at us while we gave the woman at the till our haul. But then, we had another challlenge to get to the Chill Zone. We had second place practically in the bag even if we didn't finish that part of the challenge, but there was no way we could let the Ice Dancers win again.

Our challenge was a train. No, seriously, that's the idea. There were nine carriages – the first one held the Ice Dancers, the second one held some kind of farm animals, and we were in the third. Some other animals would be in the carriage behind us, followed by the third place team, and so on. The idea was to get as close to the front of the train as possible (once Don gave us the okay over the intercom). The train would then stop at the Chill Zone. The Ice Dancers could relax, since they got the advantage of already being as close to the front as possible. But Sky and I had the advantage of only having one car to get through. Well, a car full of goats, but let's be honest, the nanny goats were loud but basically harmless. It was the billy goats we had to watch warily, because those horns could hurt.

By the time we got through, we soon realized the issue – one more team was already ahead of us – on top of the first car...which was swiftly rolling away from the rest of the cars. Someone had unhooked it from the others, and the Sisters had apparently run across the top and were lucky enough to reach the train before it was unhooked

Sky and I didn't look at each other. We just ran and caught the train along with the Sisters, who were on the roof.

"Hey, any room up there for us?" I called up.

Emma rolled her eyes. "Sure, why not risk two more lives?"

I took that as a yes and climbed up. Sky followed.

"So I assume the Ice Dancers unhooked their car so they'd win?" I sighed. "Hope they'll get a penalty for it."

Kitty nodded. "Yeah, we saw them doing it, but I don't think they saw us, so they probably still think they're in first."

"That's why we decided to break our alliance deal with them." Sky said, narrowing her eyes. "I don't know how they can live with it. I mean, I'm here to win too, but I'd rather earn the win than cheat."

"That's my feelings exactly." Emma said approvingly. "Getting the money I need for law school from cheating would be ironic as well as immoral."

I couldn't help a chuckle escaping at that. "I don't know if you used to watch Total Drama, Emma, but if you do, you remind me of a more controlled and kinder version of Courtney right now. I can't imagine her cheating to win, but she does immoral things to that end."

Kitty burst out laughing. Emma raised her eyebrows but smiled, and Sky grinned.

"Maybe." Emma admitted. "I didn't watch all of Total Drama unless I was forced to-" At this point, she nudged Kitty fondly, "And I did feel a bit of a connection with Courtney. But I didn't always _like_ her."

"And she's not your favourite Total Drama contestant." I prompted teasingly. "Seeing as your favourite was with us a while ago."

Well, Don was happy to give the Ice Dancers an hour's penalty. "Seriously? You thought I wouldn't notice _the rest of the train_ missing?"

I think Sky and I made things even worse when we stepped onto the Chill Zone and took our third first place win just as Josee was confidently saying that the rest of us were "miles away". It didn't make the Sisters' second place any easier on them.

Or the Police Cadets' third. They took a little longer to arrive – they'd been in the last carriage but had fought through all of them and arrived about twenty minutes after the rest of us.

The Best Friends, though? They didn't make it to the Chill Zone. They almost did, though. Just as they were climbing the steps to the station-

"Ice Dancers, your penalty is over! Fourth place! Best Friends, I'm sorry." Don said. "You're the last to arrive. I'm afraid you're going home."

Both looked disappointed. But then, Carrie smiled at Devin and kissed his cheek, and they both looked happier.

I couldn't help it – I had to rush over. "Wait a minute! Are you two-" I didn't have to finish. Both of them grinned, nodding. I pulled them both into a hug.

"Congratulations! I knew it was going to happen!"

I was listening to their goodbye confessional too. "It was a superhard race," Carrie admitted, turning to Devin as she spoke, "But you were my hero the whole time."

"I had a great time." Devin added. "It _was_ hard, but at least it opened my eyes to what was always there – not just in the world, but right in front of me too. We got to have fun – and get closer."

I didn't hear the rest of what they were saying, but as they walked away, arms around each other and looking cuter than Sam and Dakota (possibly one of my favourite Total Drama couples that I only met at the reunion party – they were extremely adorable), I knew without a doubt that they would be very happy for a long time.

Since most of us were into spicy food, us final four teams all set off into town to find a good place to eat. We even ended up in the same place – an Indian-Chinese upstairs place called Simla Restaurant that served a lot of hot food.

We didn't sit at the same tables, of course. The Ice Dancers and Police Cadets each sat alone, but Sky and I sat at the same table as the Sisters, and we relaxed, talking about what we'd do after the race, rather than the remainder. Now that it was the final four, tensions were raising higher and higher, and we knew that there were only three locations left. Well, that was one thing we talked about – our remaining locations.

"I hope we go somewhere else like Hawaii." Sky said straight out. "I didn't have fun when we went to the big island earlier on – a beach resort-type place would be great when I can make the most of it."

"Don't bet on it." I laughed ."I'd like some kind of jungle place. Borneo or something – we've been all over Asia, but the closest we got to the jungle was those Komodo dragons. Or the UK would be cool too. Scotland has a cool atmosphere, and I'd love to go around London – the tube would be like a maze challenge in itself, like the catacombs in Paris!"

"I'd like to go to Italy." Emma said distractedly, gazing out the window. "There's supposed to be a lot of ancient history and empires there, and I know that kind of thing, so we'd have a good chance of winning."

"Yeah, but where's the fun?" Kitty giggled. "I have about a hundred more places I want to visit, but several more states in the US are on the list. California, New York, Florida, Washington – I _really_ want to go to Forks in September. Apparently they have a festival for vampires."

I blinked at her. Then I said "Um...you're not referencing that special day they have for the _Twilight Saga_ , are you?" I'd read the first two books, but gave up after that because I felt like it would've been a better book if the human girl actually got into a passion over important stuff like uni and extra-curricular stuff and her other friends. In fact, another certain Total Drama competitor put it this way: "Boyfriends come and go, but girlfriends are forever."

"I know it's not supposed to be cool to like the story," Kitty shrugged, "But it's really romantic. If you don't overthink it, you can have some fun with it. And I _love_ Alice – she's like my fictional soul mate!"

Sky smiled and nodded at her. "I've seen the first couple of movies. And yeah, you seem a lot like her, so that makes sense."

Still, only time would tell where we'd go next.

 **A little bit of self-indulgence there. Still, Stephenie Meyer will probably be happy to know that some of her old fans still remember her books – which I don't own. And she does have a holiday dedicated to her in Forks on September 13th, which was supposed to be the day before Bella's birthday. They also do tours resembling the places described in the books – I'm not a Twihard now, but ten years ago, the books were pretty magical and I think they were what turned me into the hopeless romantic I am now.**


	25. Chapter 25

**Right. Okay. Buenos Aires. My sister actually gave me unusually large colouring pencils from Argentina for my tenth birthday (she was in South America for most of her gap year before uni), but that's the closest I've gotten to it. Thanks for reviewing, Nicky Haugh and Lord of the Sloths.**

Despite our next new location not being the jungle or United Kingdom, the first tip that Sky and I took the next morning still held promises of a pretty exciting location in a continent we'd visited...well...sparingly.

Sky read the tip rapidly. "It says we're going to Argentina. Buenos Aires, to be exact."

The Sisters actually beat us to the airport, but on the other hand, we beat the others. The Ice Dancers in particular were getting very antsy about it as we lined up behind the two girls.

Kitty glanced back at the Police Cadets and Ice Dancers." Oh, don't mind them." she said sweetly to the man at check-in. "They're our friends and they're just worried they won't get their usual seats at the _veerrrry_ back of the plane. Do you think you could save those seats for them?"

I giggled as the Sisters got their tickets and I stepped up to ask for ours. "We're friends with those two as well." I told the check-in man. "We don't have to sit at the back, but we'd like to get seats close with them, if possible."

Well, we ended up near the front of the plane across from the Sisters, so that was good luck.

"So what do we know about Argentina?" Sky asked me.

I shrugged. "I know Spanish. I know it's in South America...that's about it. Unless you have a wealth of information, we're going into this challenge with no knowledge."

"They're famous for red meat." Sky said hesitantly. "And I think the tango is like a national dance for them. But that's all."

I smiled. "Well, maybe we'll have to tango." I leaned across to the Sisters and relayed the information. "And by the way, Kitty," I grinned, "How did you get the idea to get the other teams stuck at the back with the bathrooms and probably a lot of interruptions?"

Kitty giggled. "Once when the Reality TV Pros were still here, Noah compared the bathroom seats to sitting next to Owen after he'd just eaten something like a burrito. Plus we're closer to the plane door, so we might have the advantage in getting to the next Don Box."

Emma smiled, too. "It wasn't exactly my way of getting an advantage, but it worked, so I have no problems with it."

We were lucky, I guess. I reached the Don Box a fraction before anyone else after our long plane ride. "All-In." I told Sky. "It says Tango Takedown."

Sky looked over my shoulder. "So we have to dance – in front of a tango instructor at this dance school? And we have to get it right or start over."

Okay, so to level out with grabbing the first tip, we had the slowest cab, so we had to go last. At least this gave us the chance to watch not only the instructor and his partner's demonstrations, but also all the other teams.

The Sisters were first. "Okay, here we go." Emma siad, looking confident.

"One, two, three..." Kitty counted. Then she stepped on Emma's foot.

"Ow!"

Thumbs down from the judge.

The Ice Dancers were next. Ugh, I hadn't thought about it, but they were used to dancing on a slippery surface in skates. So you could kind of say that they had the advantage straight off, not only because they knew how to dance, but because they'd been partners for so long and were familiar with each other's movement. They stepped in sync, they broke apart in sync, and they even wore the same expressions as they glided through the routine.

Finally, it got to the end. Josee spun, Jacques dipped her and the instructor clapped, while the rest of us grumbled.

"Good luck catching up!" Josee called back, laughing.

I'm not sure exactly what the Police Cadets were doing when it was their turn. There was a spin, and MacArthur mentioned dipping as she spoke, but that was just about the only part of their dance that resembled the tango. And they ended up falling over the instructor.

Sky and I had been paying attention to the instructor and the Ice Dancers carefully. It was time for us to shine. So we jumped into position, stepped carefully, broke apart for the clapping part, and then Sky set me spinning in place, and finally dipped me. Our moves weren't as fluid and natural as the Ice Dancers', but we made it through the routine without making a mistake. We didn't fluff moves, step on each others' feet, or injure each other.

We got a thumbs up and set off for our next location, a ranch.

"I can't believe we managed that first time!" I said when were safely in a taxi. "I mean, you're graceful, you're used to it. Me? Not so much. I worried non-stop I was going to screw up on the spin."

"I knew you could do it." Sky shrugged, relaxed now that part was over. "We're both athletes. We know how to move, and we know each other's style pretty well by now." She suddenly frowned. "Though I'm getting nervous, now we're so close to the final. Are you sure you don't feel tempted at all to tip the balance in our favour?"

I thought about it. 'Kinda, I guess." I admitted. "But I promised I wouldn't do it. And I thought you trusted me now. You haven't been mad at me since that whole thing when I saved the Fashion Bloggers and let the Daters go home instead."

Sky nodded. "I want to trust you," she said, "And I mostly do. But it's crunch time, and I know that's really the time when everyone shows their worst side. You just seemed a little too amused by Kitty putting the others at the back of the plane."

I shrugged. "Well, I didn't do it. I didn't even think of doing that. And it's not really cheating – the Ice Dancers just won the first part of the challenge!"

Our next challenge was a Botch or Watch. "Your turn." I told Sky. Basically, what Sky had to do was take a horse, and use this traditonal rope thing to tie up an emu. Each emu had a team picture on it.

Sky narrowed her eyes. "There's something dripping off our emu. And the Sisters' emu has it too."

Right on cue, we heard two evil chuckles. Jacques was already on a horse (with the same dripping substance smeared on his clothes and hands) and Josee was standing by.

I gave a sigh. "Okay, tell us what you did and we won't kill you."

"What makes you think _we_ did it?" Josee said innocently.

"Yes, come back when you have some proof!" Jacques added. Considering that the substance made him slip off the horse entirely, it wasn't too hard to work out what he'd done – he'd put oil all over the emus to make the challenge almost impossible.

"That proof enough?" I said sweetly, trying to make my smile barbed.

"That's not hard evidence." Josee said dismissively, but she smirked as she said it, making it pretty clear that she didn't care that we knew they'd done it.

Still, by the time the rest of the teams appeared, the Ice Dancers had about as much trouble as we did – and the Sisters, too. Jacques had gotten oil on himself and kept slipping off the horse because his hands and costume were too slippery.

Still, when they managed it (before anyone else including the oil-less Police Cadets), it was a picture. Jacques couldn't wipe his hands off on his clothes because they wouldn't absorb it, so he eventually actually used...his hair. His fabulous coif that he really cared about it. Then, he managed to finish the challenge.

Josee threw her arms around him. 'You're my hero! You're everyone's hero!" she declared dramatically before they took their emu and went off to the Chill Zone.

The Police Cadets followed soon after. The Sisters had a bigger major issue when their emu ended up sliding down part of a hill and took Kitty with it, but...well, they seemed fine once they reached the Chill Zone. After us, I might add.

Okay, so the way we did it in the end, was that I held the emu in place while Sky, on the horse, aimed to tie up the emu's legs, since they weren't oily. We were off just before the Sisters came back up to the ranch, but...er, let me put it this way: Don't try to stuff an emu into the backseat of a car or taxi next time you go to Australia. They may have brains that are smaller than their eyes, but they are also very bad-tempered. Those beady glares and frowny beaks aren't just for show.

But it paid off. Sky technically did the Botch, so we hadn't cheated – I just did something to help her complete it, not doing any part of the tip's instructions myself. So when we reached the Chill Zone in the Andes (yeah, the Andes borders half the cities in Argentina – and Chile, where the Amazon meets part of the Inca Empire and giant heads reside on a nearby island), Don just greeted us with "Frenemy Athletes, you're in third!"

Second-last. Since the tip didn't say "Do not pour oil over the emus of the other teams to make the challenge harder for them", the Ice Dancers had made first place again, and the Police Cadets had come in second.

I grinned at the Ice Dancers. "You know, there's going to be a _lot_ of shippers looking into that hug." I told them cheerfully (I knew that it ticked them off the most when their enemies were friendly to them). "That was a completely adorable moment and if it doesn't make it into the final cut, I'm _so_ suing."

I didn't get a reply to that, although Jacques glanced at Josee with an uncomfortable expression, and Josee's face twitched. But I got the message – they didn't want anyone to ship them together.

I went to a cameraperson to give a quick confessional. "Looks like I touched a nerve. Hmmm...I was thinking that there might be something in there – Jacques looked as if he thought that dating Josee would be really awkward, yet they're so close that...wait a minute!" I thought about it. "Considering, most male figure skaters aren't even into girls, are they? I mean, I always got the feeling that _Tom_ was gay, seeing that he's into fashion and not into Jen, but I didn't think about Jacques. But that makes a lot of sense!"

I didn't have anything against gay guys, just let me make that clear. But I was just really astounded as to how I'd spent this much time with these people and yet had never even thought of that.

The oil trick really came to nothing, seeing as the round was non-elimination and the Sisters arrived last, but were still in the race. So to wash away the bad feeling, I suggested we all go into town before dark. Well, the Ice Dancers didn't want to come, but the rest of us all came, and ended up in Tourist Trap Patchwork Land, aka La Boca. It was full of colourful patchwork houses – Kitty took about twenty selfies of her in front of them, and pictures of the rest of us, too (which I asked her to send to me when we got home - "or friend me on Facebook and post them there, of course"). As for me, I smiled and greeted the tango dancers and street artists in Spanish, getting returning smiles and greetings. It was a fun evening, although we needed to get back before dark, just stopping at a takeaway place called Chipper to get fish and chips for everyone (although we had to bring them back via taxi). This included two extra serves for the Ice Dancers, who didn't thank Sky when she gave them the food (it was her idea to include them, inspired by my friendly attitude towards them), but they ate it with gusto, as we all sat around on the mountain range, watching the sun set.

 **It may be a short chapter, but I loved that ending. La Boca was an incidental find, but I wanted them to get a takeaway and Chipper seemed like the right place – apparently it does the best fried fish in Buenos Aires. Hope you liked it anyway.**


	26. Chapter 26

**The Bahamas, huh? Well, never been there. Does Honolulu and Rarotonga combined count? They're both places where you're expected to sit on the beach, drinking cocktails. Or by the poolside. Wait...does Fiji count? I've been there, too – imagine a four-year-old begging for a mocktail one evening, already in pink Little Miss Trouble pyjamas. Anyway, this chapter was one I was really looking forward to writing, so hope you enjoy it!**

 **Thanks for reviewing, Nicky Haugh, Phenomenal Styles, Lord of the Sloths and Pokemon FTW (well, she didn't mean to – she just came to that conclusion and spoke out loud, disregarding the camera).**

I woke up really early the day after the Argentina challenge. I'm not sure why, but I did, and I felt extremely refreshed, too.

Before we left, I heard the Ice Dancers talking to the cameras. Now I felt a little bit guilty about my thinking out loud the night before – I'd accidentally told the cameras that I thought Jacques might be gay, but it wasn't like the kind of people who watched these kinds of shows would change their opinion on him. No one I knew would mind who anyone's sexual preferences were. Like, how different would Jacques being into a certain type of men be to, I don't know, Geoff being into kind-hearted blonde surfer chicks? Or me being into buff sweethearts I could look out for and who would hug me when I was down? Yeah, if you were wondering, that TDI crush I had was DJ – he'd never been in a relationship but his bio said that he imagined himself in ten years on a porch with his mom, currently nonexistent girlfriend (not that he'd probably have a hard time finding one but I'd gladly take that space if we ever met again) and pets, so he was obviously into girls. However, outgoing and friendly with a malicious streak was probably not his type, even if dark-haired athletes were.

Anyway, sorry, the Ice Dancers. They were going on about how they'd won more legs than anyone else (well, yeah, but they'd cheated at least twice for that placing).

"Who'll stop us?" Josee asked the cameras. "The Sisters?" She laughed.

Jacques chuckled too, then said "The Frenemy Athletes?" They both found this extremely funny, laughing more.

Then Josee said "The Police Cadets?" And this apparently was insanely hilarious.

I was a lot more interested in what they said, though, when they took the first tip. Josee read it out: "We're going to the Bahamas."

Despite being first, you should've seen their faces at the airport. Their taxi meant we all beat them there.

"I guess it's true." MacArthur quipped. "Ice guys _do_ finish last."

Josee got so mad she threw one of the airport's computers out of the window. - and I think I heard her start to say the F-word, but then remembered the show's ratings and only got as far as 'fu'. Jacques stayed put, but screamed "We are so sick of those Cadets!"

I paused and looked at Sky. She exchanged a look with me, then we shared a guilty smile. We couldn't help enjoying the spectacle just a bit. It's not like we had to _say_ anything, right?

When we were safely in the sky, I turned to my partner with the same name as the place we were flying through. "So, what do we actually know about the Bahamas? The beach resort?"

Sky shrugged. "When I hear the word 'resort', I think of blue skies and drinking cocktails by a pool or on the beach."

I thought about it. "Well, I have a feeling the Bahamas was one of those places big on piracy in the past, back when it was more remote. Now it's probably a total tourist trap. I think the challenge could involve swimming, but who knows? If a challenge in Argentina could involve a native Australian bird like an emu, maybe a challenge in the Bahamas will involve putting on winter clothes."

Sky shrugged again. "We had to freeze in Siberia and overheat in the Finland saunas. I wouldn't put it past the producers to try and make us get heatstroke from the sun instead of steam. Don't even joke about it!"

As it was, my piracy guess was more off the mark. We took the second tip at the Don Box (which had an eyepatch on it), which told us to go to a museum documenting privacy to get a treasure map that would be useful for the second part of the challenge. Once we found it, we'd get into our swimsuits and jetski to a little dock located at the edge of an island, where another Don Box would be waiting.

We stayed in second place at the museum, but soon slid down into last. Yes, you heard me. We ended up finding our (laminated) treasure map last. By the time we reached the next Don Box, only one diving suit and oxygen tank was left, and Josee was just sliding into the water while Jacques, Emma and Sanders were standing there with mics – I assumed MacArthur and Kitty were already underwater.

I took the tip. "Random Botch." I read. "Looks like it's me, since I took the tip. I have to dive down and go into a deep sea tunnel and find a sack of gold coins, then come back. The map should tell me what to do."

Sky nodded. I quickly got my helmet and oxygen tank, then took a breath and dived in, literally, holding the map.

Okay, so getting into the tunnel wasn't a problem. What was a problem was that my mic didn't just connect me to Sky. I could also hear everyone else. I actually got into the tunnel ahead of Josee because she was in a panic, but I had to hear her whimpering and yelling every step of the way. It got especially grating when she started getting angry with herself. "You're a winner, and winners never quit!" she told herself. "Are you a baby? You're pathetic, a pathetic baby..."

She kept talking, and I heard Emma muttering "Super awkward..."

"... _do you hear me?!_ " Josee finished berating herself.

"Oh, we're hearing it." MacArthur's voice came through. "Can someone please disconnect her mic?"

"I second that." I chipped in. "By the way, as an update, I'm no longer in last place – the claustrophobe is. Are you planning to help her at all, Jacques?"

I tuned out for a few moments, until I heard Kitty saying she was in the cavern, and then there was a squeal of "I found the treasure!"

But things got much worse for poor Kitty. I heard the whole thing as I traveled. She lost her flashlight to a fish, then in trying to get it back, got lost. Then I heard her, almost in tears, saying she was stuck.

Josee was right behind me, and I wasn't sure where MacArthur was, but I had almost made it into the cave. I could probably get into first or second place if I just came and went. But Kitty was my friend.

Okay, so Josee and I were probably in joint second. We reached the cavern at the same time. I took one of the little sacks, and Josee took the other, but she saw me dithering, not sure what to do.

"And Josee takes the gold." she boasted with a smirk. "Like there was ever any doubt." But then, she got into another panic – and this was totally warranted. "My oxygen is down to two percent!" She had to find an air pocket for the moment – but she'd need help.

I paused. Then I made my decision. It seemed like we'd have enough time to stay in third place. "Sky, I'm not coming back yet." I warned. "I'm going to find Kitty first. Don't say anything – I have to do this." Then I swam towards the opening on the other side of the cavern.

"Kitty, any idea where you got to?" I asked as I swam.

"Not sure, but I'll try to direct you." Kitty said shakily. It took me a while, but I found her. Since her oxygen tank was what was keeping her stuck, we abandoned it and shared mine, swimming back the way we came using my flashlight and treasure map.

"What place are we in right now, Sky?" I asked as we came out of the tunnel and started swimming up. "I didn't hear most of what happened."

Sky sounded surprised. "You didn't hear MacArthur saying she wanted to help Josee? I'm shocked. I'm pretty sure she did for her what you've done for Kitty. We're in joint third right now, but not by much."

I surfaced, Kitty and I both letting out our breath in relief. It was time to really go for it.

Okay, so we got back to the mainland, got dressed, and then headed for the Chill Zone with our booty (that's the coins, not the other meaning although obviously we didn't leave those behind either). But...well...remember how some people are grateful when people save our lives and other people aren't? Well, I'd already told Kitty not to repay me, _especially_ not by throwing the race. I didn't want to have that TV plot from cartoons – I'd seen that a million times. There was the Powerpuff Girls saving Big Billy from a train in that one episode, Arnold saving Sid (and when Arnold stopped trying to stop Sid from playing slave, the kid got bored and decided to blame it all on him even though Arnold had tried to tell him he didn't need to do it all) in _Hey Arnold,_ and so many others. All I wanted, I'd said, was Kitty's email address and mobile number so we could keep touch. And maybe her taking a selfie with me in it too and sending it to me, so I'd always have a visual memory of the race.

But, well, grateful wasn't a word to describe Josee. The Ice Dancers weren't in danger of losing. Really, they weren't. It's true we were close behind them, but that did not give Josee any right to throw a coconut at MacArthur, causing her to fall over, which also caused Sanders to have to use only her good arm to pick her up and carry her into second place (behind the Ice Dancers).

And you know what? Somehow, the Sisters made it just ahead of us.

Don gave the other teams their travel tips, and they all took one of the three water taxis waiting. Then he turned to us. "Sky, Julie, I'm sorry, but you've been cut from the competition."

"Yeah, we figured that." I sighed. "I guess I blew it again."

Sky put a hand on my shoulder, her eyes bright. "You blew it for a good reason." she said softly. "You sacrificed this competition to be a decent person. I like to win, but I would have done the same."

Then, it was time for our farewell confessional. "Well, fourth place isn't too bad, considering we made it ahead of fifteen other teams." I mused.

"And I feel like we understand and appreciate each other more than we did when we started, even though we've been teamed up before this." Sky added.

"Before this," I joked, "I feel like I was part Alejandro, part Scott and part generic reality show villain. Now, I'm hoping I've redeemed myself."

"You have." Sky said, in a voice that made me believe her. "I don't mind not winning the million dollars, since I already won a million once. I feel like I got a friend back."

"So, shall we start planning the sleepover with our old cast to watch the premiere now, or when we find out who wins?"

Sky laughed. "I'll decide when you agree to hold it at my home, not yours."

 **How did this chapter not get any longer? I was so looking forward to writing this one. So yeah, you can take this as a sign that Sky finally trusts Julie completely. I don't know if Sky would definitely have gone back for Kitty, but I like to think she would have, and Julie placing Kitty's welfare over winning proved to Sky that she is not on par with other Total Drama villains, not by far. We'll go to New York next chapter. I'm pretty sure there's only two chapters left now!**


	27. Chapter 27

**Okay, finale time! And, well, yes, I've been to New York. Loved it there – it was like I'd stepped straight into a Hollywood movie when I first went to Times Square to see a Broadway show ( _Annie,_ although now I wish I'd seen _Avenue Q_ instead. I only chose the former because I'd never seen it onstage before and I'd seen _Avenue Q_ twice, but now I want to see that again).**

 **Thanks for reviewing, Killshot Kamikaze (love the new name – I once started writing a story where the main character's surname was Kamikaze but never finished it), Mistress Mysterious, Lord of the Sloths, Pokemon FTW and Nicky Haugh.**

 **Also, a little note. Remember I mentioned a few chapters back that Sky's sister lives in New York? Check Episode 26 again and you'll see her. If I remember correctly, her identity was confirmed. And maybe we'll see a few more people hanging around in this chapter, I don't know.**

There was no point in going home, since the other teams had to go to the finale setting. There would be a checkpoint for them where the third place team would lose, then the last two teams would race to be the winner – and the other seventeen teams would be waiting for them, including us and the third place team.

As for the place the finale was? Why, New York! Flights had been formerly scheduled for each team in the location where there were eliminations, so all each team had to do was get back to the airport and give their names to the person at the information desk, who would direct us to the right check-in line and location. Luckily, the flight was actually pretty short – less than three hours. It took longer to fly across the USA – like, say, New Mexico to Virginia or something like that.

Anyway, Sky and I were excited to go, even though we were still a little down with losing the race. "Remember, I told you my sister lives there now?" Sky said, a smile lighting up her face. "I'll have to look her up when we arrive."

But first, we had to go to our hotel, which had a room booked for us. And as we expected, guess who we found? Everyone else from the race was in the lobby, waiting for us.

Okay, so we hadn't become great friends with the rest of the cast, but we liked almost everyone, so it was great to see them all again. I was pleased to see that Ryan and Stephanie were holding hands and back in Dating Heaven, and Carrie and Devin seemed to have reached that point, too. Cute!

Everyone wanted to hear how things were going. Although the Ridonculous Race was starting to air in the USA (it would only air in Canada after the race was over), they'd only gotten to the episode in Paris, so they knew absolutely nothing about what was going on now.

Like, the LARPERs were absolutely shocked to hear what kind of people the Ice Dancers really were. Noah wanted to know if Emma talked about him much ("I know she's thinking about you, but she's trying to put her feelings aside until the race is over, like she said in Alberta.") Everyone else wanted details on the challenges they hadn't done (the Mom-Daughter team looked like they were about to barf when we described the eating challenge in China and the Adversity Twins looked like they were about to faint when we told them about the Komodo dragons in Indonesia).

The atmosphere with the losing teams was so different to how it had been during the race. None of us had been really hostile towards each other in the race, not really. The atmosphere on Pahkitew Island had been much more tense, even right at the beginning. Without voting, the race had been less so, but now we were all out, it was like wearing a corset for weeks and then suddenly having no corset at all. I could breathe easily, because there was no temptation to cheat or pressure to win. It was just hanging out with a bunch of other people. Most of the teams had been mixing, getting to know everyone else. Since so many of us were here now, it wasn't hard at all to find someone to talk to.

But the last part of the race was going to be tomorrow – the other teams would be at the airport overnight, and then get a flight to New York around seven o'clock East Coast time, so they'd be here before ten, and we'd be waiting next to the final Chill Zone, with three screens each showing what was going on with each team – live!.

"Who are you rooting for?" I whispered to Sky.

"Not sure." she whispered back. "I got to know the Sisters better, but I really respect the Police Cadets. I probably would've decided the Sisters if MacArthur hadn't saved Josee's life yesterday. Did you hear her getting on Josee's case about throwing that coconut at her and it didn't seem like she cared at all?"

"Well, I'm rooting for the Sisters." I admitted. "I can't really not – I mean, they might not even be in the game if it wasn't for me, but I feel like they deserve it. Emma's so much nicer than she was at the start of the race, and...well, I really don't feel like I can root against Kitty right now. I just think they deserve it. A lot of the race stuff seemed easy for the Ice Dancers and the Police Cadets. The Sisters didn't have as much physical ability but they made it to the final three anyway, and they're underdogs."

It was a shame the Sisters had done the Scare challenge on the first Either-Or, because the first task at the start of the finale was to go to the Empire State Building and each take a locked suitcase that was waiting for them at the top with a tip – and they had to take the stairs. The other two teams had done the Stairs part of the challenge at the CN Tower, so I guessed it wouldn't be so easy for them.

But there was one smart thing the Sisters did. All the teams got to drive their own taxis to the tower, but they all caught in a traffic jam. The Sisters were furthest ahead, so they ended up abandoning their taxi and proceeding on foot, which actually got them there second. Sanders imitated a siren to get the traffic out of the way, so the Ice Dancers, by a small margin, reached the building last.

The tip told the teams to go to a checkpoint in Central Park, where the last team would be eliminated.

The Police Cadets, for whatever reason, ended up out of the door last. By that time, the Sisters had taken the Ice Dancers' taxi and the Ice Dancers, seeing that, took the Police Cadets' one.

Just while we were watching the traffic zoom past, I heard a shout from Owen, pointing to the Sisters' screen. "Look! It's Chris!"

We all looked up, just long enough to see a man with windblown hair and recognizable clothes hold up a newspaper before we could get a proper look at his face.

"I hope we don't run into him before we leave." I whispered to Sky. "I know he said he was _way_ happy to send me home in the last season."

"You better hope we don't run into the others around NY, either."

I blinked at her. "What?"

"You didn't see them?" Sky raised her eyebrows. "Anne Maria was hanging around outside the Empire State Building. Didn't you recognize her? I didn't mention it because I thought you'd know. And remember Blaineley, that woman from World Tour? I think that was her carrying boxes past the tower, too. She was wearing pink and I couldn't see her face, but she looked the same."

By this time, the Police Cadets had stopped a hot-dog shaped car and insisted on appropriating it. Suffice it to say that while it was faster than the taxis, the Sisters had a little bit more of a headstart and the Ice Dancers were right behind the Police Cadets.

I literally stood up and cheered when Emma was the first to hand Don a travel tip. And..well...it was a close thing. The Police Cadets' tip flew out of their hands and nearly fell down a sewer. And that was Sanders' cue – she literally tore off her cast and since her arm bent unnaturally, she was able to reach the tip just before she fell unconscious. Don took the tip, and...

"Ice Dancers, I'm sorry," Don said, "That it took me so long to say this! You're cut from the competition."

The team that had done everything they could have thought of to win stood up, looking...surprisingly calm. Even Don was saying it out loud.

"Why aren't either of them going ballistic?" I whispered to the Best Friends on one side of me.

The two exchanged glances, and Carrie whispered back "Wait for it."

And sure enough, it took a couple of seconds, but a wordless scream tore itself out of Josee's vocal cords, and the nearby fountain statue (and an alligator) paid the price. When Josee was about to throw a hot dog cart, Jacques finally took some action. "Josee, no! It's over. We...we lost." And then Josee let the cart go and started to cry.

But meanwhile, while their screen went blank, there was still something happening on the Police Cadets' and Sisters' screens. The thing was, apparently the Sisters got lost in Central Park. They were meant to go to a boathouse and rent a boat, because they had to find the combination to open their cases on the buoys, which would yield a tip that would tell them where the final Chill Zone was. So even though MacArthur had to put Sanders' cast back together, the teams reached the pond around the same time, and started canoeing to the first buoy, almost neck and neck.

As they started off, the Ice Dancers reached the bleachers that the rest of us were sitting at. Although we'd heard their final confessional, it didn't seem to have meant anything – Jacques had admitted he wasn't proud of his actions, and Josee had said she was going to be a better person from then on, but there was nothing in their faces that made me think they didn't feel entitled to the win.

Before the teams reached the end, each losing team was called to the confessional one last time, to give their thoughts, now it was the end of the season. They'd only use about five or six confessionals, but we all had to give them one. Sky and I were second to last.

"It's going to be a close one." I said. "I almost can't stand to watch who's going to win."

Sky nudged me. "And that wasn't the case last time you were watching a finale, was it?" she teased.

I nudged her back. "That's because I was more preoccupied by those revelations your helpers got and you saying giving yourself away in your confessionals was giving me ammo."

"And yet I know for a fact that the only confessionals you've listened in to this season are the ones where they're basically standing next to you – so don't worry, I trust you to play fair now." Sky laughed.

So...who actually won?

Well, I have to say it, so I'll just tell you straight – it was the Sisters.

I know, pretty weird twist? Even though I wanted them to win, I was almost sure the Police Cadets would make it. But I guess sometimes things don't work out the way you expected. It's like Sky once said (I saw this in the episode, OK? I wasn't listening in) "It always comes down to what you've got left in the tank." One last-minute sprint, and the Sisters were first on the carpet.

"Well, looks like everybody's happy." Don said brightly.

"We're not!" Josee called out from the back.

"For the last time," Don scowled, "I don't care!"

Even the Police Cadets congratulated the winners, and then both teams had to make an ending confessional.

And that was it. The show was over. And even though I hadn't won, I'd reached my goal.

Oh yeah, and I made a lot of new friends too.

 **I'm sorry, I hope that wasn't too anticlimatic. There's still one more chapter to go!**


	28. Chapter 28

**Right. Show's over, but not the story. Not yet. Thanks for reviewing, Nicky Haugh, Pokemon FTW, Lord of the Sloths and Killshot Kamakaze.**

I tried to get email addresses off every person in the race, even the Tennis Rivals. Well, I didn't even ask the Ice Dancers but that's because I knew they wouldn't give me one and even if they did, they probably hardly ever used it with all the time they spent practising. Even Taylor gave me her email, seemingly having forgiven the things I'd said to her earlier in the race. Although something told me I should get her in contact with Amy, who, if I was to believe what Sammy had told me via Facebook, had gone from merciless bullying, to barely talking, to talking civilly, to being almost but not quite friendly.

Speaking of the twins, Sky and I had already started making plans to invite all our friends from Pahkitew Island over to Sky's house to watch the premiere – that is, Episodes 1 and 2. Well, I say "friends" - but really although we'd been on good terms with most members of the cast, we didn't actually like everyone. We'd already decided that whether she was out of the juvie facility or not, we weren't going to invite Scarlett. We didn't think it was safe, especially since we were going to invite Max. Pretty much everyone else was invited, although when we asked Leonard on the plane home, he said "I thank you, but I have already made my own plans. I will be watching with my fellow druids and sorcerers."

I gave a nod and said "Um...okay, sure. Have fun." I knew telling him he wasn't a real wizard would only make him cross, and it probably was a good thing he wasn't coming. Our cast would probably tease him about being the first off twice in a row.

As it was, once we got back and messaged everyone on Facebook, Max sent a message back saying he wasn't interested in seeing the show at all and oh, by the way, he was babysitting that night anyway. Sugar also sent a message back saying she didn't _want_ to watch a reality show she didn't compete in. Well, that was okay – I didn't think it would be a good idea to have her and Ella in the same room anyway – Ella wasn't desperate to be her friend anymore, but Sugar would probably still be jealous of her (so she never said it – but I was pretty sure she thought of Ella as being too much like some winners of other pageants and so saw her as a threat and was jealous at the same time).

However, even though the cast was scattered all over Toronto, our other nine castmates made it to Sky's house for the first episode. In fact, once we all arrived, Sky's parents went upstairs and left us all to hang out in the living room together. By the time the first episode starting, Sammy and Jasmine were talking rapidly with Shawn adding in his two cents once in a while, I was listening to Ella and Beardo collaborating – Ella sang to Beardo's rhythm – Topher was telling an interested Amy about his casting agent (apparently he was still looking for filmed exposure), and Sky and Dave were talking quietly, their faces close together (awww, sweet). Rodney wasn't talking at all – no, he was watching Amy with a goofy expression. It looked as if she had an admirer.

Then, the TV started blaring out a voice that had become all too familiar to Sky, and we nudged our castmates. "Ssh – it's starting!"

The first episode was kind of jarring to watch. Now that Sky and I were proper friends, it was weird to see our more distant relationship from so many weeks ago. But anyhow, anyone else was watching and commenting. Sky looked at Dave nervously when I asked her about dumping Keith onscreen, but he smiled and squeezed her hand as if to say all was forgiven. Sweet, wasn't it?

When it got to the break between episodes, we were all chatting. "So, got a second favourite team yet?" I asked my friends.

"I liked all of them!" Ella said, smiling. "But I'm interested in the best friend team. I think there's more to their relationship than they let on."

"You mean one of them is in love with the other." Amy said in a superior tone. "Like, duh. How could you not pick up on that?"

"Amy means that if you pay close attention to the way Carrie looks...what's her friend's name?" Sammy said.

"Devin."

"Yeah – the way she looks at him makes it clearer."

"I like those police cadets." Jasmine spoke up. "They're going to be a tough team to beat. I wouldn't be surprised if they won the whole thing."

"No spoilers, Jaz." I said sweetly. "What do you think, Rodney?"

The big guy made eye contact with me, then mumbled "I think teams great work flowers racing is...ugh! I mean, uh..." he looked away from me and managed "I like the Father-Son team. The son reminds me of one of my little brothers."

That was weird. When he was looking at me he made no sense, but the minute he stopped looking at me, he spoke like anyone else.

"I think those two that keep playing to the camera are going to be a good team!" Topher said in his opinionated way. "You know, the gymnasts or whatever they are. They're definitely going to bring the drama."

Sky shrugged. "You'll see." Well, he wasn't wrong.

I looked over at the one person who hadn't spoken at all. "Shawn? Thoughts?"

Shawn thought for a minute, and finally said "I think those goths. They look like they know what they're doing."

That was the last answer I had expected. They hadn't even spoken in this episode, and they didn't speak in the next. It wasn't until the following week, in fact, when we heard Ennui speak for the first time when he was drawing Crimson, and even then, his question was "Do you want to look alive in this?"

But in a way, Shawn must have noticed something we hadn't, considering how far the Goths got.

After the second episode, Sammy was the first to speak up. She grinned at Amy. "Hey, sis, guess who I think of on that race when I think of you?"

Amy gave her a bored look and said "Surprise me."

"The big sister on that sister team." Sammy said, a little bit of a smirk on that face. "The one that always thinks she knows better."

Amy paused, frowning. Then, suddenly, she smiled. "I thought you were going to say the spoiled brat on the Mom and Daughter team. I mean, she'd be a great shopping partner, but...maybe I was kind of like her before you grew a spine and told me I was out of order. But..."

"Yes, I still think you're bossy." Sammy told her. "But you've always been bossy – I don't expect or want you to stop."

A rare moment of connection was sensed by everyone else as the twins exchanged smiles. Wow, Sammy had really turned her life around since the start of Pahkitew! And Amy seemed...actually, sort of friendly.

We didn't watch every episode together, of course, but I set up a "PI Cast Talk" group on Facebook, so we discussed episodes every day. Sky and I had been there, so we gave the others tidbits about behind-the-scenes stuff, like exactly how mad Sky had been that day I saved the Fashion Bloggers in Transylvania, and the dumpling-eating contest Brody, MacArthur and Owen had in Beijing.

The others swapped favourite teams, made predictions, and nearer the end, started guessing who would make the finals. However, hardly anyone guessed the Sisters until after the Best Friends were gone (a lot of people thought that their teamwork would make them major endgame contenders until they lost in India.

There were things Sky and I didn't know about, too, that we saw. Apparently the Tennis Rivals had followed the Vegans around the catacombs, thinking that non-dairy eaters would be able to guess where dairy foods were located, and yet they were almost last. And in Iceland, the Father-Son team only got through when Junior put his hand over Dwayne's mouth and repeated the Icelandic translation of "Please give me my next travel tip."

Topher said he didn't admire Don as much as Chris. He probably missed Chris' sadism. I actually got to like Don more and more as the season aired, because it turned out he'd demoed several of our challenges, including the walking-on-hot-coals one. He hadn't had to carry anyone, but he'd had burning feet, just like me and all the others playing groom.

I also wrote reviews on every restaurant, cafe and ice-cream parlour I'd visited. Understandably, Casa Di Amore (Vegas, remember?) had my most glowing review. And, get this, a certain classic Total Drama competitor, from the third season, commented on it!

This is what he said: _This sounds like a fairly mainstream place, but perfect for a vacation I'm planning in several months. Thank you for the detail._

Now, I'd never met Alejandro, but his full name was posted on there, and I recognized the thumbnail immediately. I was tempted to ask if Heather was coming on that vacation too, but didn't. After all, who was to say he was still with her?

My parents watched the season with me, as religiously as any of the Catholic traditions. I have to say, they were somewhat more pleased with my actions this season than last season. They didn't really approve when I saved the Fashion Bloggers and eliminated the Daters, but let that slide as everything else they saw on the show gave them no reason to condemn me. They were particularly impressed when I sacrificed my chances of winning to help Kitty. And that I wasn't the coconut-thrower afterwards.

Actually, you know what Josee's excuse for doing that to MacArthur was? She had a confessional put just after that; "Just because she got all soft doesn't mean I have to." Honestly, how had I managed to stand her without sabotaging her myself? I guess I'd never really seen the full extent of her malice. And trust me, that girl wasn't any less vile off the screen than she was on it. Jacques was a little more sympathetic, mainly because Josee wasn't very nice to him, but he was extremely patient with her, up until the penultimate episode when he told her he didn't want to go to the majors with her any more and then, when she was in a panic and Sanders asked him why he wasn't saying anything, explained "I've been taking this kind of crud from her for fourteen years! It's about time she had a taste!"

When Mom and Dad saw that, Mom gave a sigh. "I thought he'd stick by her. I suppose not everyone can be completely loyal all the time on a show like this."

"Be fair." Dad said mildly. "She's been pushing him quite far on this show, We can't expect him to take it forever."

So, I guess that's it. I felt like I'd really had enough TV screentime any teenager could want. There was no doubt I'd do something with my life. Later.

And _later,_ is something I shall say again in a minute. Julie Rosa Sanchez would like to thank you for keeping up with her. And now, I'm going to have to catch you another time. Later!

 **Yes, that's the last chapter. There's another story I was going to start on, but I wanted to get this one done first. I hope you enjoyed Julie's race around the world, and thank you, all reviewers!**


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